Teen Titans Bitter Memories
by Devil5AdvoCat
Summary: Robin has a lot of secrets and a very dark past. So when he finally opens up to his father and to himself about his feelings for Raven, who is the villain that surfaces from his previous life before the Teen Titans? What do they want? How will Robin choose between saving those he loves and the innocent people of the world, when the decision falls on his shoulders?
1. Chapter 1

_**Teen Titans- Bitter Memories**_

Chapter 1: An unlikely request

As the sun began to fall beneath the heavy grey clouds in the cluttered sky, the wind picked up on Titan's Tower, pushing a guest that made Robin's cape flutter like an American flag and tested the fit of his white and black mask over his eyes. He could tell from his favorite perch that a big storm was on its way through Jump City and crime was likely going to go up as a result. Parking lots and already dark alleys were going to be obscured, lots of businesses were going to shut down early for the night and leave their possessions locked up.

Maybe he should go on patrol. After all, it had been a week since the team had encountered anything besides Magic Mumbo trying to rob a jewelry store downtown. That had been a pretty easy takedown. But now Robin felt a familiar itch he wanted to but couldn't scratch, a sensation of need to act, pursue, or infiltrate something criminal that was hardwired into his brain, body, and even his very soul. He had it for years after realizing that being a hero was who he was and who he was meant to be. Recently though it had made him less of a person for it, less of a teammate and even just a friend.

Slade probably chuckled at that one, wherever he was.

Robin guesses that was why he spent so much time alone. He didn't necessarily want to be but more often than he cared to admit, any time anyone talked to him for an extended period of time his conversations would always steer towards trouble and seriousness. Lately he had isolated himself even more than usual, if that was possible, just for that reason. The simple fact of the matter was that it wasn't healthy for his team to constantly think about all the stresses of their position all the time. It was his duty as a leader to leave them all the Hell alone and let them have more free time.

He blamed it partly on the undisputed king of workaholics AKA Batman. Speaking of, Robin seriously contemplated calling the member of the Justice League while everything was momentarily nice and peaceful. He hadn't spoken to his father in easily several years thanks to their last argument. Batman had thought Robin needed to be treated with kid gloves but he proved him wrong these past several years, having saved the world numerous times with his team, not just the city he resided in. He knew Batman was still checking up on him all the way from Gotham City, no doubt fully aware of his many achievements to date as a leader of his own team.

Despite that small amount of continued resentment he felt for the man for that, here Robin was, scowling at the city he protected every day while holding his communicator already flipped open in one hand, ready to key up the frequency he knew the Justice League operated on. Or Hell, he could have even called Wayne Manner's phone number once he encrypted the call. Nah, that was a little too risky and he knew it. If someone got ahold of his communicator and cracked its security key they could easily put two and two together for Batman's true identity as well as Robin's, and that was not going to happen while he still wore the cape. So the best way to contact him personally would have to be in person.

He stood up, making up his mind that he would leave Cyborg in charge of the Titans while he was gone to try and work things out with his father. Even if things weren't completely resolved between the two of them, at least the two would be on talking terms again after…jeez, maybe 3 years? Way too damn long, that was for sure. He smiled at the thought of seeing Alfred again after so long as whipped around so fast he almost walked directly into the girl floating in midair directly behind him.

"Whoa! Raven?" Robin stumbled back a step or two as she too flinched a little and landed awkwardly in a hasty crouch behind him. "What are you doing, sneaking up on me like that?" he inquired, a little embarrassed at how quietly she had gotten so close to him.

"I wasn't sneaking," Raven said. As she looked into the whites of his mask with her deep, beautiful amethyst eyes, she smiled a very small smile unique to her. It was something she only did with him, he had noticed, ever since the incident with Trigon several months back. He had never seen her smile like she did now, staring into his disguise as if she could see right through it into his true self, with anyone else on the team. Even though all of them had somehow mended her loneliness and despair for her terrible destiny, she seemed most thankful to Robin, and sometimes even very admiring of him.

Like she was right now, when they were alone. Robin didn't miss a beat in her meaning either. "You came up here to meditate but didn't want to be alone," he reasoned.

She nodded and pushed some of her violet hair away from her cute face, tucking it behind one ear, which was also something he noticed she never did but when she was alone with him. "I knew you would be up here. You usually are this time of evening, watching the city as the Sun goes down."

Robin noted as she spoke, several other subtle things were different than usual about her. She rubbed one of her forearms absently, shifted her weight very slightly from one foot to the other. He could even make out the faintest amount of blush on her smooth cheeks. She was…nervous. And embarrassed? About what, he wondered. It's not like her sneaking up on him was something to be all bashful about. "Well, you're lucky you caught me up her this evening. I was just thinking about going somewhere to take care of something," he said somewhat brightly, the idea of patching things up with his Dad giving him reason to smile a little himself.

Raven frowned a little in curiosity. "Are you going to go check on the Titans' East? Or one of the other new members somewhere nearby?" Robin shook his head and started to walk past her towards the door. "Nah, its just something I need to go and do is all."

Robin wasn't normally touched by anyone from his own team unless they were in the heat of battle or he had to be held back for something, which didn't happen very often at all anymore. And he was especially not used to being touched by Raven of all the other Titans. But she did; as he passed by her both her arms shot out and grabbed him by the forearm faster than he thought she could move. She was _never_ one to initiate physical contact unless it was utterly necessary, so when she pulled his tight forearm between her small, soft hands and brought it up against her chest like she _really_ wanted his attention, he stopped his stride sure as if she had a remote and he was a TV.

"Can I…go with you?" she asked in a very quiet voice, looking up at him with a hopeful expression in her eyes. "I don't care if it's a regular patrol or a secret mission or even something personal to you. I won't get in your way," she added, glancing her eyes down and off to the side as she said it, before looking back up to him slowly.

Get in his way? Man, he must have really been a dictating jerk around the Tower lately if she had to say that to him. Maybe the rest of the team had even asked her to confront him about his behavior lately that way. Or maybe he was overthinking that, considering how much time he tried to stay away from everyone lately. But it did make him really wonder what the meaning was behind it all. Was Raven just saying that because she personally wanted to spend time with him and, if what he was doing was a personal matter to him, she wanted to do it on his own terms so as to protect his secrets?

It wasn't easy to tell from Raven so he gauged the truth by answering in a neutral tone, "It's a personal thing, Raven."

Raven's expression was still masked by her usual neutrality to keep her powers in check but over time, Robin had learned to see past it by instead reading the subtle movements of the rest of her body to uncover how she really felt, deep down. He noticed now the minute way her eyes lowered and her pupils grew slightly, the way her shoulders tightened up slightly in anticipation, and the very small parting of her lips. She was hopeful to learn something about him on a deeper level, but also somewhat nervous…maybe of upsetting him somehow. She was also somewhat scared, possibly of rejection, he thought. Above all, she just wanted the chance to go with him wherever he was going even if he would continue to hide things from her to keep his secrets, which she was totally okay with.

Just so he could see more of what she was thinking, he decided to elaborate a little more. "I need to travel somewhere in Gotham City to speak with…well, actually, to resolve an issue. I'm going to leave immediately."

Raven showed signs of more hope; she squeezed his arm a little more and smiled a little wider than before. She really wanted to go with him. And the strangest part was that he really didn't mind. Somehow. The usual- apprehension he felt, the sense of unease that his father had built into him to protect him from trusting people too easily just sort of lifted off his shoulders as he looked at her, like the weight of the world was slowly lightening its load on his stressed body. "If you don't mind riding, I'll take you there."

"Okay. Should I pack a bag?" Raven asked. Robin sighed and nodded, "Yeah…it'll probably take overnight. It's sort of a complicated situation to figure out." She nodded with a somewhat concerned expression now and let his arm go, her smooth dark skin leaving the contact with his elbow and green gloves. "I'll meet you in the garage."

And with that, she rather quickly decided to just phase through the concrete of the roof's surface rather than actually take the stairs and disappeared in a swirling vortex of her dark magical energy. Even from a few feet away, Robin felt the slightly cold sensation it threw off on everything around it. It was kind of like getting an anesthetic at a doctor and feeling it start out cold entering the body before warming up to take effect. It was pretty weird, but that's how affected him, at least. The cold sensation numbed the feeling of her actually making tangible forces on you, so often Robin couldn't even tell if she was using her magic on him unless he heard the words of her magic spell or he saw whatever the dark energy did to him.

But anyways, time to pack. Which reminded him something vital.

They had to go undercover for this. He wasn't supposed to enter the mansion openly wearing his uniform, and he certainly didn't want someone to see him and Raven riding around seemingly for a joy ride and give them the wrong idea. Part of him couldn't believe he didn't think of it earlier when Raven was still there with him but he guessed she did have a way of taking his mind off whatever he had been thinking about. And come to think of it, Robin was astonished she actually got the drop on him without him even noticing. If Batman knew he'd probably reaffirm Robin needed to stick to further training because that was a pretty serious mistake. He'd say that was going to get himself killed, or worse, his entire team as well.

Oh well. He'd figure that out when he got to back Home. First, he had to go tell Raven the need to know info,

He proceeded downstairs feeling a mix of differing emotions for everything going on…confusion, slight agitation, hope. Funnily enough though he wasn't as worried about settling things with Batman as much as he was still just surprised and perplexed at what Raven had just asked of him. It really made him wonder what she had been thinking of lately. Because she had been acting differently ever since Trigon, being more open to other people despite her restrictions on her emotions due to her powers. And she had been trying to spend more and more time alone with Robin ever since they defeated the Brotherhood of Evil together.

He pondered the meaning behind all that as he passed through the halls and heard all the other Titans exactly where they tending to be this time of night; Cyborg and BB were on the couch playing a racing game while Starfire was in the kitchen in vain trying to cook something from Earth, with little Silky belching loudly on the counter beside her. Robin decided against interrupting their game to tell Cyborg to watch over the place. He'd just shoot him a text once he and Raven were on the road. And speaking of Raven, he found her door shut as usual in only a short time.

Knocking quietly he said, "Raven? Hey I forgot to tell you something, you there?" The door slid open with the help of her dark magical energy instantly, something Robin _never_ expected of her either. She was bent over in front of her twin glass door dresser, the one that had big white masks of different emotions all over it, with her blue cloak set on the bed. For whatever reason, she actually had the lights on and all the way up in there too so a lot of things he had only seen maybe at a glance before were super defined now. He saw a really large triangle shaped bookcase off to his left hand side right beside the door, a dresser of drawers made of wicked shaped black wood next to a podium ordained with even more dramatic looking masks. Her bed, hooded by what looked like a gigantic beak of a bird with black satin sheets all over it. It was all very alien to him, as if he were only just now seeing it all for the first time.

Most noticeable of all was her body. Robin had never really looked that closely at her because most of the time she was covered down to her ankles and the little blue boots she wore over her feet, but it was hard not to now. Her skin was a grayish looking color but it wasn't actually creepy or anything to him. It was just different, something that nobody he had ever seen had like she did, and it suited her well. Her legs were longer than he ever thought they were, very slender. But her hips were wide and her core was tight in that black leotard she always wore, giving her a very distinctive hour glass figure. It made him think of an Olympic swimmer.

And man….with her bent over full on like that, it was not easy for him not to check out her butt. Or the way her C cup breasts strained against the fabric of her one piece uniform hanging down from her chest. The curve of her back was even alluring, all the way up to her slender shoulders.

"….Robin?" With a start, he realized Raven had turned her cute face back to him now, while she continued bending over with her hands on her knees. His cheeks felt a little hot. She was smirking at him now, obviously aware he had been seriously checking her out and was now subtly teasing him for it. "What do you need, Robin? I thought you wanted to tell me something." She flipped a little of that gorgeous hair she had out of her equally tantalizing eyes.

It was enough to make his knees shake a little and force him to clear his throat before speaking. "I…ah, wanted to tell you we have to go undercover for this. We can't be seen going in uniform."

She pursued her lips in thought and for a moment he thought that might actually be a problem. After all, he had never seen Raven wearing anything other than what she was wearing right now, even since the very first day that they met years ago. Maybe she didn't have anything else. But then she turned around and walked into one side of the dresser, covering herself in that dark energy that obscured her body in an instant. He felt the waves of cold coming off from it and had to admit it helped a little; he was still a little warmed up from seeing her in such an amazing pose.

She appeared out of the curtain of magic only a moment later, now dressed in something he quite simply could not believe.

Raven now walked before him in a pair of heavy black combat boots, black skinny jeans that suction cupped every curve of her lower body like a glove, a thick black leather belt with tons of little silver studs all around it, and a tight fitting smoky grey tee shirt that had a big cartoon skull and crossbones on it, advertising some kind of headphones. She also had a little dark blue watch on her left wrist, facing backwards in an unusual fashion, a matching studded bracelet on her opposite wrist, and a tiny little blue hair clip that helped keep one of her long bangs tied up behind one of her ears, accenting the left side of her flawless skin face.

She blushed a little initially as he gazed at her in shock, even rubbing one toe absently on the floor so she could look at something other than his reaction. "I…bought this a while ago when I went shopping with Starfire but never took a day off to just go wear it. Will…this work?" She looked up at him slowly and as soon as she caught on to whatever retarded expression he probably had on his face, she instantly brought back that playful smirk. She knew how stunned he was seeing her like this and she liked the attention.

All Robin could think about was what it would feel like to pull her close and kiss her.

Wait, nope. No way. Not happening. That was wrong and he knew it.

Or was it?

"It…it looks great. That'll do just fine. Ummm but you'll probably need a jacket to go with it for the road."

"I don't have one. Maybe I could fit in one of yours?"

"Sure. Let's, ah, go to my room real quick."

And like that he was walking away feeling embarrassed slightly for openly gawking at her like a frickin sweat construction worker howling at a passing legal assistant or something. He forced himself to keep his eyes ahead of him as she walked behind him, clomping that little boots as she went along because she wasn't used to something so heavy. Confusion was rampant all through his train of thought, the whole thing having left the terminal and basically imploded the moment he found her almost touching her toes in front of that dresser.

God, he wanted to see it again. He wanted to see more of her. But at the same time he didn't. His conscious sitting on one should was telling him that he really needed to keep things professional between him and his team, even though they were all already very good friends. A relationship could tear the whole team apart just being happening, or even worse if it failed and left the two of them with bad blood. Plus, Robin just wasn't the type for that sort of thing. Girls were too complicated. One of the very few mysteries that he would rather just avoid than actually try to solve, because they were so damned confusing and difficult to understand. And with him already acting so distant and inward reflective lately? Forget it.

Or, at least, that's what his rational mind told him. His emotions disregarded all that logical nonsense without pause and sent him a very clear, concise message over and over again like a broken record: kiss her. Hold her. Try.

"So how are you gonna disguise the R Cycle?" she suddenly asked casually.

"I made a second one that's hidden in a warehouse downtown just for missions like this. It's got all the same toys as the R Cycle, but it looks like just an ordinary sport bike. It's pretty comfy to ride too," he replied, sure as his mouth went on auto pilot with the words. "Cool. How long's the drive?" Robin made it to his door and made a bee line for the closet, feeling a bit of relief that his mental cluster of crap was subsiding from the conversation. The last thing he needed was to feel out of whack when he went to talk to quite possibly the most observant and analytical man in the entire world. "It's about four hours from downtown."

"Can I drive some of it?"

Robin almost dropped some of the clothes he was taking out of his closet, the question caught him so off guard. Raven, _driving_? He was perplexed enough that she had even decided to go on a trip with him at all, much less on a motorcycle. And now she wanted to drive it? What the actual hell? She had never wanted to do anything like that and yet here she was, sitting on the edge of his bed in those skin tight jeans of hers, kicking her feet back and forth casually as she waited for an answer.

"Um, sure. I'll teach you how to ride if you want. What's the sudden interest?"

Inside the closet, he quickly changed into his version of "undercover; a pair of black combat boots, slim fitting blue jeans, and a white tee shirt with a black leather riding jacket. A pair of wide black sunglasses would replace his mask. Stepping out, he saw Raven was now standing in front of the mirrored surface on the other side saying, "As much fun as meditating all the time is…I really want to just have more fun. Do something different, something exciting."

For no particular reason, as she kept turning side to side examining how her brand new jeans tightened around her very attractive thighs, Robin found words about himself he hardly told anyone blurting out of his mouth. It was like they had completely bypassed the station in his mind and just jumped onto the talking train. "I used to make all of being a hero about having fun after I got justice for my family's deaths," he said, voice quivering a little. "I got a thrill out of doing the stuff Batman taught me saw every bad situation like the opportunity to really mess with the bad guys, in some way or another. I was more like a prankster than a real hero."

"Like how?" she asked, glancing back from her hair as if she were debating whether it fit with what she was wearing or not. She paused for his answer and when it hung for some time, she turned all the way around to look at him, and immediately stood up with a puzzled look on her face. Robin felt like a kid again disappearing on her like that. "Robin…?" She sounded partly confused, another small part concerned, and another part almost slightly agitated as she scanned the inside of the closet and peeked across the room.

He felt such a simple, immature joy in confusing her like that, followed by the act of laughing like he used to, short with a quiet little echo in an amused tone. He even threw his voice with it, something he hadn't done in practically years, making his voice sound like he was somewhere in the bathroom off in the corner of the room. He also made it seem to come from behind the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed and even the desk across the wall, all at the same time. It all sounded like he had just started playing a game with her and he was already winning, and gloating in glorious pride.

Raven smirked as if his trick amused her and put her hands on those ridiculously shapely hips of hers. Then she added some cold to her voice and whispered the words of her mystic spell while waving one hand across the room.

" _Azarath Metreon Zinthos_." The black magic poured out of her body like a water faucet with a leak under high pressure, flowing like a giant wave into the shape of a constantly expanding orb that swept through the room with a tiny hum of her will running through it, giving it form and tangibility. It was a lattice work of sensory magic that detected every single nook and cranny of the area around her, penetrating each object so she could visualize everything around her as if she had ran her delicate fingers through all of it. It didn't go very far before she detected him.

When she sensed he was directly behind her she jumped a little and widened her eyes in surprise, instinctively adopting a protective fighting stance he had taught her, and all the other Titans, for fighting in close combat. It was definitely not Raven's strong suit, but she got the form right, instantly facing him with her body at a 45 degree angle to his, knees slightly bent, with her non dominant left hand up close to her face while her dominant right was about chest level, extended a little closer towards him, ready to throw a punch or grab a knife. As she did the dark energy disappeared in the blink of an eyes and Robin rose from where he was crouched, directly behind her where the nightstand and the bed touched the wall. A place that was so small and hard to access she couldn't see him unless she bent over backwards and peered down at it.

"How did you do that?" she demanded, looking him up and down at his new choice of wardrobe. Robin saw a mix of emotions run through her eyes mostly; first, surprise, then slight fear, followed by irritation, and finally…indifference, or at least a mask of it again. She was a little irritated she did not guess correctly at where he was hiding from her it seemed, so she was feeling cheated. Or maybe the loser of their little game. A lot of bad guys had those same emotions right before he knocked their lights out. It gave him a real rush of excitement doing it again to someone so just to mess with her he made a big show of wiggling his fingers in a mystical fashion and whispered, "Magic…"

He also grinned ear to ear, probably pretty arrogant and childishly based on how she knit her eyebrows in response.

"I would have sensed that," she countered, matter-of-factly. "You must have slipped under the bed," she reasoned, proud of her conclusion. "That's how I didn't just feel you move. Because if you went over the bed I definitely would've heard it, or just felt it move once you put weight on it."

"Oh? Maybe you should check under the bed then. What if there's no room to crawl under there?"

She gave him a slight glare of boundless confidence and a subtle expression of "you're totally bluffing", but she nonetheless squatted down on those amazing legs she had, then bent over to glance underneath the frame. She would only see tons of sealed cases and boxes down there though, all parts and tools used to make his specialty gadgets and toys for the utility belt. She continued looking down there anyway, pushing on things to see if they moved easily, maybe thinking he just slid one out of the way to slip under her radar.

He disappeared again and had to cover his mouth to keep himself from laughing in childish glee at her fiery reaction. This time, she stood up and crossed her arms in an agitated fashion, cocking her head to one side and muttered, "Seriously?"

Robin let the giggles run through him until he was sure he could contain the stupidity that made his body twitch and shake before throwing his voice once more in a cheerfully playful tone, saying, "Hey, I'm doing you a favor. Batman does this so much he doesn't even realize it anymore. And if you aren't trained on how to be one with the shadows then you better get used to it now."

She guessed pretty well the second time. She walked over to the opposite wall and poked her head around the other side of his desk, in the small space next to a trash can full of botched reports and failed gadget designs. But, after not finding him there, she turned around to discover him laying nonchalantly on his own bed, on his side with one elbow supporting his head as if he were just reading a book. He yawned as if he had been there for a while just for the Hell of it, even being so audacious as to glance at a little sport grey watch he now wore on his left wrist. It was all just one big show to make it seem like he had been waiting there for a while, even though he really had only just back flipped from the ceiling onto the silky sheets.

"We should do this more often, Raven-"

The sound of the door flying open so violently it cracked the wall made them both bounce a little in alarm. Starfire strode into the room quick as Kid Flash and demanded in haughty tone, "Do what it is more of the often?" Her posture was plagued by jealousy and suspicion for honestly no good reason at all. Nonetheless, the emerald green eyes glanced back forth between the two of them. First, to Robin as if he had just stolen something of hers and was the likeliest suspect, and then over to Raven, whom made her squint in unattractive way as she surveyed how, ah, differently she was dressed.

It didn't really hit him how bad it might have looked, with him lying on the bed like that and her dressed so provocatively, until Raven gave Starfire a wintery cold smile and told Starfire, nonplussed, "Robin was just showing me something is all. Something he used to do all the time."

"What is that?" Starfire asked, not understanding at all. Probably getting the worst idea, actually.

Sigh….women.

Raven jerked a thumb to where Robin had vacated the bed like that thing was on fire. Instantly, Starfire's eyes popped as wide a little kid's, and she scanned to scan the room like she just lost her new puppy. "Robin? My friend, I wish to know your location!" Raven just shook her head and started walking, grabbing the red hoody he'd left out for her to wear off the corner of the bed. As she slipped out she said, "He's disappeared on me like that 3 times now."

"Meet you in the garage," he called cheerfully from what sounded like the hallway.

"The two of you are going somewhere?" Starfire inquired, instantly jealous again. "To where and why is it you go?" Raven didn't look back at her but instead pulled the hoody over herself, which was slightly too long for her, and said without looking back, "He has some things to take care of out of town. I'm going with him."

And before she could say some venomous response, Raven phased through the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Robin met Raven down in the Titan's garage shortly after shooting Cyborg the courtesy text, of which he was, predictably, extremely interested in where he was going and what he would be doing. Robin chose to ignore his inquires as why he had Raven coming along with him and found her standing by the launch bay to the T Sub. She had on a black backpack decorated by a cartoon rabbit this time and was watching the little fish swimming in the entry pool as she waited for him.

"All right, put these on for me." He brandished a regular looking black full face helmet, a pair of fleece lined leather riding gloves to keep her hands nice and warm, and a good sized leather riding jacket that was also pretty well insulated against the cold. It was about 60 degrees F out after the sun went down in Jump City, but the many nights he had spent patrolling Gotham had taught him that city was almost always freezing over. That's why the hoody he gave her was also fleece.

She crashed his train of thought again, violently. Her caught himself watching her chest stretch very attractively as she slung the jacket over her shoulders.

 _Seriously, Robin, you need to get your head out of the gutter. Or at least look in the right direction from the gutter to what is socially acceptable and polite,_ he thought to himself.

Eager to avoid getting caught by her again, he turned to a little dark corner where he kept some of his bigger or more complicated tools on his work bench. He made a lot of his explosive discs, boomerangs, grappling hooks, and other stuff on that bench. What he was after however was just the small key hanging off a hook that was hidden pretty well in the back and one side of the shelves. He had to chuckle a little that the last time he used it apparently he'd added a "Remove Before Flight" key tag to it, like the red safety tags aircraft mechanics put in dangerous components of aircraft to avoid the machine being started without a proper safety inspection.

When he turned back around, feeling a little nervous about what came next, Raven was completely dressed. Something about how that helmet, with its clear visor up, accented just how imperceptibly deep her eyes were. He was momentarily lost in them, just watching all the glittering different shades of the same color around her pupils. It was more than just distracting.

It also grabbed his attention in a completely different way than checking out her butt.

"This helmet is…really weird. What are the little silver things on the top and sides for?" For a second, Robin had no clue what she asked him. It had just gone right over his head, like he hadn't listened to her words at all. Just the sound of her voice. The second after that he registered the upward inflection to her tone implied a question, and he quickly forced himself to break away himself from her gaze. It did make him wonder if that was magical too, though.

"Those are vent slits, so you can get more air while you ride. Kind of the next best thing to air conditioning when you ride on a hot day. But we should keep them closed because it'll be chilly."

"Makes sense. Where's the bike?"

Robin tightened the straps of his own backpack on his shoulders. "It's in a warehouse on the South Side. Can you fly us there?"

Raven nodded and stepped very close. She hesitated for a slight fraction of a second then wrapped her arms around his waist with one arm and tightly over his back with the other.

He took note of how she reacted when he returned the gesture. It wasn't an outright flinch but the breath she took wasn't exactly complete relaxation either. Robin honestly had trouble placing it in her emotions. All he could sense for sure was that she was definitely not used to touching someone else voluntarily and it showed.

He also was pretty surprised in how they flew. Embraced so tight, her body shivered with a whisper of her magical will and the two of them began to rise off the ground, sure as if they were too balloons full of helium.

It was a really hard sensation to place, flying like that. It had the same G force effect of flying in say like a helicopter, which made him suddenly feel way heavier than he really was and made the both of them readjust their grip on each other. It wasn't a feeling that scared him though. Between jumping off so many different tall structures all his life and all the flying he had done with Starfire in the past he was more than accustomed to it.

It was odd that she had chosen to fly them to the warehouse in that particular way though. Normally, Raven lifted the team using a tangible saucer made up of her mystical dark energy. She had done more creative things as the situations had called for it in the past, such as catching him by a tee shirt shaped web of the magic around his upper torso when he had almost dop kicked Cyborg in the face accidentally a few years back. Sometimes she even phased him through the ground rather than stop a fall or enveloped them both in a giant Raven shaped bird that flapped its wings and glided them to safety. He knew it was easier for her to do it that way. She told him how her powers worked before.

Her magic phrase focused her will and solidified her thoughts of what she wanted to create or do, much in the same way using something like a table makes it easier for an artist to draw a picture. But flying them as she did now was the equivalent of trying to draw that piece of paper on her leg or her arm. It was more difficult for

her to effectively double the effort of flying herself normally because she didn't need her magic phrase to make herself fly. She did it all the time, because she was so used to her own body dimensions and weight that she didn't need any assistance to help draw the picture of her flight. It was automatic, as easy as it was for Robin to arbitrarily do a hand spring or a back flip.

Holding him and increasing her weight to effectively over twice what it was made it hard to fly like that. It was way easier to use her phrase and just create something that she could maintain the shape of and just guide the way she wanted it to go based on his weight. It was risky to do it. She could very easily lose focus and send them both falling to their deaths to the sea passing far below.

 _She's flying like this because she either wants to be held or, since she intiated it, wants to hold you, big dummy._

It made sense. If she made a disc or something for them to ride on they didn't have to touch at all if they didn't want to. With a start, he realized her heartbeat was so incredibly close to his now. It was beating faster than it should have been to, for someone as athletic as she was.

It was beating like she was riding a roller coaster for the first time right before the first big drop.

A deep, resonating warmth spread from her as they floated over the highest catwalks of the city suspension bridge. They went past the hoody and the leather jacket and it honestly felt like the kind of warmth someone felt climbing into a bed they just got out of to go back to sleep. It was so wonderful of a feeling he found himself squeezing her tighter, feeling his own body shiver as he felt that warmth. He just sucked it up, even though his jacket was suddenly in the way.

Her scent penetrated his thoughts too, even despite the gently breeze making their hair wave. It pierced whatever possible train of thought he was attempting to kick start like an ice pick, and when he identified the scent that shattered it all like the swing of a heavy hammer. She smelled like ripe strawberries. A sweet, subtle scent he had to really focus on to pick up that well, from her conditioner or maybe deodorant. He wasn't sure.

It made him crazy. Without a pause to consider his actions, Robin's hands slipped from higher up on her shoulders to lower, down her lower back to where he felt her muscles tightened up from holding him. His hands stopped, without his command, right on her hips. His fingers spread wide over the place just below the studded belt she now wore and slightly under the too long hoody he gave her. His thumbs found her body beneath, and under her shirt slightly. They pressed into the highest part of where her pelvis met her lower abdomen, and they didn't stop. They rubbed there in the most gentle, barely perceptible way possible, but they kept moving in small circles he pressed into her. His pinky and ring fingers had meanwhile drifted over the belt and dipped the tiniest hair of a distance into her back pockets.

He couldn't decifer her reaction with her face over his shoulder, but he knew that had done something to her. Her heatbeat skipped once against his chest. It shocked into a sudden slowness abruptly right after that, sure as if his hands had found controls to the roller coaster of her hidden emotions, and brought it to a distinct stop. Frozen, almost.

Logic, the dirty jerk, creeped up on him with a sudden, sobering reality: _Hey, genius? If you get her too worked up over…whatever it is you're doing right now you could both end up in the water. And as far as you are from the bridge your grappling hook is useless right now._

And yet, he didn't move his hands. Instead, his voice essentially said screw it and spoke up of its own accord again, saying, "It's the warehouse to your left with the orange roof."

Raven didn't reply. He would've bet his R Cycle that she sighed at that though, and not in an unsatisfied way.

She _liked_ the contact he was making with her.

So was he. It had been, what? Well over a year since he had been anywhere close to intimate with anyone. It had been with Starfire, he remembered, when they had made it out of the Brotherhood of Evil's ice sculpture trophy wall trap thing. After that…well, he guessed she had become more introverted, like how she was when she first landed on Earth. Robin isolated himself more and more, suspicious that villains were plotting something when they really weren't and Starfire had eventually just gotten tired of it. She was always wondering where he was, wanting to be let into his life more and to learn his secrets.

Robin wanted to let someone into his world too but he was just never that prepared to do it. To be honest he really hated that about Starfire. She was always too prying, too obsessed with learning who he really was under the mask. It annoyed and saddened him to constantly put her off because he didn't feel like talking about his complex personal history that, as an alien, she would not really comprehend.

And yet, here he was with Raven, about to possibly feel all kinds of things to her. And what did he feel? Nothing. Just warm.

"Robin?"

Still deep in his never ending cycle of self-reflection he replied, "Yeah? What's up?"

"We're here. You don't, ah, have to hang onto me anymore."

Ah. He didn't even notice they had landed. Both of them were still entwined standing outside the door to the warehouse. Nothing but a quickly picking up breeze sounded in the lowering sunset, except for the never ending din of the city in the distant background.

He picked up her hint though. She didn't mean it in a 'let go of me' kind of way. She meant it as a sign she was content to just stay like that now that she had him in her arms. It was just the two of them there, with nobody else for miles and for the moment, not a single care in world.

The body honed by years of brutal training and precise techniques completely moved on its own again. His legs spread a little, bringing his slightly taller height exactly to her own level. His arms curled farther around her waist so almost of them could feel her warmth. They pulled each other closer at almost the exact same time, closer than they had ever been before.

Apparently since his body chose to rebel the authority of his logical mind his mouth decided to jump on the bandwagon, yet again. It was a reoccurring theme for his day, evidently. He found himself asking, "When is the last time you've been hugged, Raven?"

As if she predicted they'd stay like that for a while, Raven concentrated a small effort of her will. That familiar numbing sensation swept over his face. His whole world went momentarily dark and it felt like dry ice was only inches away from his cheek, somehow even cutting off the distant racket of the city traffic in the late evening. Cars honking and revving their engines, the waves breaking against the heavy wooden dock nearby, and even the whistling of the wind all just vanished in the pitch black darkness.

It dispersed just as abruptly as it came and Robin noticed both of their helmets sitting on the ground.

Raven pressed her face right up against his own. She relaxed even more feeling his skin on her own, more relaxed than he had ever seen of her. Now those lips of hers were so close to his ear that when she spoke again it sent goosebumps down his neck and all the way down her spine. A tingle went across his jaw line as he felt her own move as the words came out. Her breath was warm against his neck, making his hair stand on end. And not in a bad way, by far.

"I can't even remember, Robin…" she said wistfully. "Probably…after you helped me defeat Trigon."

"Well that doesn't count. If I remember correctly, you hugged _me_ first."

"Oh yeah…at my apocalyptic birthday party." Her tone sounded reflexive. "Well, before then…I don't even know. But it is really, really nice to feel it again."

"It's been a long time for me too," he ended up answering.

He half expected their conversation to go stale after that or maybe present an awkwardness in the air, after all this had probably been one of the longest interactions the two of them had ever had together aside from when trouble was amuck. But man, did she surprise the hell out of him.

"I wish I could do more." She sighed again, this time a sad sound that had him instinctively brushing his cheek against hers slowly to comfort her. "The Monks of Azarath didn't ever show affection, even though they raised me like one of their own. I was never with anyone else before I met all you guys that night either."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that. How did you live before you met us?" Robin asked, quietly. "All I think you said is that wondered city to city."

She took a deep breath and let it out, very slowly. "I stayed in monastaries, helping the monks clean and meditated with them. They fed me, gave me a place to stay. But I never stayed longer than a night at any one place because I was so scared of the Prophecy hanging over my skin dragging them into death and destruction."

"That sounds…really tough, Raven."

She shifted her footing a little, probably to make herself more comfortable against him. "I was happy that we got the agreement from the Mayor to protect the city. It gave me a true home for once, and it helped me forget the curse from my father."

"Did something happen at Azarath?"

She quivered for a moment and Robin thought she was actually about to cry. She reigned it in over the course of only a few seconds though and said, "My father sent his armies to reclaim me from the Monks there, and my mother. The Monks put up a good fight, but those minions destroyed everything and killed everyone there. I…left years earlier after my mother told me what I was, afraid that I would get them all killed. But my father slaughtered them all anyway."

 _Ouch. BIG ouch. Way to go, Robin._ Ever so smooth with the ladies, he mustered up a pathetic sounding, "I'm sorry you had to go through all of that, Raven."

She shocked him completely again. She actually sounded happy when she said, "I'm not sure why but somehow, the way you asked me about it didn't bother me. I've never told anyone about that."

Robin shrugged. "Beats me. Although…it does bring up another weird question to mind."

Her perception was as sharp as a blade, as always. "You mean about my powers, don't you?"

"Yeah. You've explained them to me before. The more you feel, the more power you have, but also the harder it is to control. So…why aren't they acting up right now…? I know that story has to have stirred something in you. So how can you keep it so controlled despite that? I figured manholes would be flying everywhere."

"To be honest, I'm not really sure." She turned her face so those mesmerizing eyes looked down at his chest rather than the city they both dutifully protected. Her hands squeezed the muscles of shoulders and biceps tighter. "With less emergencies showing up after we put the Brotherhood on ice and the Titans were united across the globe, I've had a lot more time to meditate. After we defeated my father I felt this massive surge of control that just seems stronger every single day. I can express how I really feel more and more as time goes on."

Robin conserved that. "That's a great thing, Raven. Maybe someday you won't have to bury your true feelings at all. You'll be able to feel more like other people do."

As soon as he said it he held his breath. He was really afraid he just potentially ruined everything he had just done up to this moment with one insensitive, idiotic comment. "Not that there isn't anything wrong with how you are," he added, nervously. "I just mean…umm…"

In the end, Raven made a soft sigh and altered their hug into something even more intimate subtly. Her hand ran up his back and stopped over the base of the back of his neck, which she started to massage gently with her small, slender fingers. Her mouth pushed into his collarbone area, nuzzling him affectionately. "I know what you meant, Robin. And don't worry, I'm happy you said that. It makes me very, very happy you said that to me."

Neither of them said a word after that for some time and honestly they didn't need to. It wasn't an awkward silence. Robin wasn't sure how long they stood there embraced like that, but it was definitely long enough that if Starfire was there she would be livid with jealousy. It was only until they both heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder far away that they separated and came back down from the cloud of euphoria they had both been laying on. They smiled shyly at each other as they put their gear on.

By time they did and Robin entered the number code to open up the warehouse the wind had turned into a howl and the cold was beginning to come on in earnest. Raven took one look at the bike that was revealed by the quiet retractable door and said, "It looks like the same motorcycle you rode in Tokyo."

"It pretty much is, just with some adjustments. Hop on."

When she did Robinflew through a couple of quick commands. The bike started with a deep purr in response to squeezing the ignition button, already starting to heat their legs as the engine warmed up and made the idling sound subside into a tame sound. Tapping a few more buttons on its dash mounted touch screen made a backrest sissy way fold up and out behind Raven, with a nice little cushion for her back to make it comfortable. At the same time the big single headlight switched on and the heated seat began to warm up their butts. The handlebars were also heated, so by time he had strapped their bags to the back of the sissy bar and sat back down they felt nice and toasty in his hands. Raven sat a little above him and behind, so instead of putting her feet in the passenger pegs she instead just scooted as close as possible and wrapped her legs around his waist, almost like how she always meditated. It must've been comfortable for her that way.

Robin leaned back against her as if the bike were more of a cruiser and, thanks to the seat adjustments he could make with the master touch screen, even leaned the seat up in the front a little so he laid back against here. Her arms crisscrossed over his neck and her hands unzipped the upper breast pockets of his jacket, so she could stick them in instead.

Despite the fact it had almost 2000cc's of engine capacity underneath them both, Robin ended up giving her only the smallest application of gas and slowly let the clutch out. The bike, unaccustomed to such a gentle application of acceleration, growled deep like a lion and took off at a leisurely pace. Not too fast or too slow. Just what felt comfortable.

Activating the Bluetooth devices in the helmets with another button, Robin shifted in second and hauled them onto the main strip past their favorite pizza joint, up the big hill, and off towards the northern exit to the city. "I'll let you drive once we get out of the city, okay? Traffic with all these hills is tricky if you're still new to it."

"Okay. I…hope it isn't too touchy. I didn't do so hot when Cyborg taught me to drive his car."

"I can adjust the throttle response for you so it's a little easier. But you'll still have to be really careful. This bike goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 1.8 seconds."

"Um, great?"

Robin just laughed as the city started to slowly disappear past them. Within only minutes they had casually glided through the intersections at the base of skyscrapers and office buildings alike and reached the distant suburbs of the industrial district. Huge, brightly lit oil refineries and massive factories fitted with gigantic smokestacks covered in hundreds of lights passed them by. They lit up the sky all around them with LED white lights and belched white smoke into the quickly darkening sky. Within about 10 minutes they were on the outskirts of the city and nothing but the edge of a big turnpike lit by hundreds of tall orange street lamps remained, obscuring the stars.

Past even that and they were the only ones on the now two lane road through the desert. It massice expanse was dimly lit by the gentle white glow of the moon, accenting the billions of bright stars above their heads like how the lights on a Christmas tree penetrated the darkness around a house window late at night. It was so beautiful and it was crying shame Robin hadn't looked at them in so long. He used to all the time before he joined the Titans and after he had left Gotham, just trying to find his own path in life. Where he belonged and where he wanted to be.

Robin still didn't know where that was entirely, but he was pretty sure he wanted Raven to be there wherever it was. So her beautiful eyes could always be there to look at him and light up any darkness, even brighter than those stars above could.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3- Raven

As it turned out, Raven was a natural rider. It was kind of surprising, considering she had never needed a vehicle of any type her entire life. Everywhere she went years before she joined the Titans, she either walked, flew, or teleported using her magic. Sure, she could've taken a plane or a train just like any regular person, but Raven had no money to pay for them. Besides, because of how unstable her powers were and her in general irritability to deal with other people even on a casual basis, she couldn't risk being surrounded by a bunch of innocents.

The prophecy was also always on her mind. Even now, after her father was truly defeated, she still shivered to think of what it had done to her.

Luckily though, she treated riding the motorcycle just like anything else she was occasionally required to do with the Titans. Just like all the others, Robin and Cyborg had taught her how to do a number of amazing tasks she never thought she could even attempt, much less accomplish on a regular basis. She learned how to access databases and read crime scanning algorithms, how to beat the crap out of regular thugs in close combat if she ever had to, and she even learned at what point was it was like to be a mother.

Just the thought of those three kids made her go through a rush of quick emotions. First happiness, then worry, and finally longing to see them again. She knew they were okay but still the feelings surfaced. She made a note to spend some time to visit them whenever this thing with Robin was done.

In the meantime, Raven got the knack of how to use the gears and the clutch almost instantly. She didn't pop the clutch even once, so the bike never accidentally died on her. She had such good control that Robin was visibly impressed by her. The roads pretty quickly moved from the long, straight stretches of flatland of the desert into the windy farm roads of smaller rural towns, alongside fields of young crops. Raven leaned into the turns with ease, pressing her hands down on the bar in the direction she wanted to go, willing the heavy bike to lower to the pavement with the curves of the road. She loved the feeling it gave her to command such a powerful machine.

Every time she led them out of a wide, several mile gradual turn that kept G forces on them the whole time she gave it more and more gas. The bike surged forward with so much power it wasn't even so much like what she figured riding a regular displacement motorcycle would've been. Robin's bike had such a massive engine that it was more like riding a slimmed down car with wide, super gripping tires. Its width alone was so vast that as she sat on it her legs had to open almost uncomfortably wide in order to tuck in against the massive gas tank in front of her. Despite this, it was incredibly comfortable and didn't really inconvenience her in any way to ride it. The large windshield up from made the air flow right over her head and kept the noise down. Even though the temperature was rapidly dropping to almost 50 degrees she didn't get cold; the heated seat and grips did wonders for her, not to mention the steady but not singing warmth of the engine itself on her legs.

Robin had even given her a jacket that had a hidden plug on its front bottom in a small zipper, which plugged into a cigarette lighter charging port under the handlebars and made her leather jacket heat up too. It was amazingly comfortable.

The longer they rode the less they talked, but Raven didn't mind. Robin only had to warn her in advance of a few possible problems early on, like loose gravel in the road or riding techniques such as turning her head in the direction she was leaning to see upcoming obstacles rather than looking forward and getting surprised by them. After only about 20 minutes in he didn't have to even give her advice at all. He just unzipped the pockets of her jacket, stuck his hands in for the warmth, and held on to her in silence.

Raven knew it wasn't necessarily he didn't know what to talk about. After she had went into his mind and established a connection with him a while back to help him deal with the remnants of Slade she had learned a great deal about how he thought. She better understood what was consistently on his mind, how he thought about things depending on how severe or dangerous they were, and why he was motivated to do all that he did. Over time since that day, she picked up on the signs in his character that revealed specific things he was secretly dealing with. All of his mannerisms were very small and hard to detect, which was why Starfire and the other Titans didn't notice them.

Raven could also, to a certain extent, feel what emotions Robin was feeling on a regular basis thanks to that connection. It came and went fairly randomly so she couldn't use it to better understand him when he acted distant and mysterious but it was still there. It surprised her pretty frequently actually.

For about a half hour she expected him to be pouring through the details of some kind of mission he was likely going to be on during this trip. She knew he wouldn't just up and leave the city for a weekend just to go on a short mini vacation by himself. He had some reason for going that he really didn't want the other Titans involved in. He did say it was personal after all. It made her wonder why he agreed to let her go with him too.

But when her little sixth sense about him kicked on she at first didn't exactly understand what it was telling her. She felt…tranquility. Rhythmic tranquility, like trained breathing. It was the only thing she felt off of him and for a moment it all went right over her head. She thought he might've actually entered a state of strong meditation despite his unsuitable posture for it. Maybe he was relieving stress by focusing on nothing but his breathing and just letting all the things that weighed him down slide off his shoulders finally. It made sense if he really was doing that; Raven could barely imagine all the stress he was under on a day to day basis.

She almost laughed out loud when she realized he had simply fallen asleep on her.

Letting him slump against her back Raven decided not to disturb him. All of the Titans knew that Robin rarely slept more than the basic 6 hours a night he needed to keep his body in perfect condition. He never slept in. They were constantly going to bed with him still very much awake and pouring over the main computer terminal to analyze crime statistics and he was always up with the sun rise. Raven used to watch it rise from her bedroom window herself, but once she learned he liked to stand on the roof as it came up she started to join him. Raven didn't want to interrupt whatever he was thinking about so she kept her distance, but she still liked seeing him there with her.

The pressure of constantly making instant decisions on how his team should attack super criminals based on a variety of factors like the terrain, their individual skill sets, and the villain's own particular skills was massive. They all knew he had learned to ease the stress away through honing his body like a temple or sharpening his mind with constant small issues here and there. They all had no clue what that kind of pressure was like to endure day in and day out. Raven also knew Robin was under constant political pressure from the City itself as well.

Most people liked the Teen Titans. They cheered when they came in to save the day and they all had plenty of their own fans (even Beast Boy, somehow). But there were just as many tax paying residents who worked hard at ordinary jobs all day who held the team accountable for things that happened. In the heat of battle, the Titans had to use everything they could get their hands on in order to stop their enemy. Raven herself and Cyborg were the two most costly members of the team for that reason. Both of them constantly were picking up nearby cars or ripping poles or other objects out of the ground in order to beat down their enemy.

Unfortunately, every one of those things cost a significant amount of money, and plenty of people got pissed off that their stuff was being used a battering ram against a super villain.

So Robin was also constantly spending his free time working with the Mayor and the City Counselors in order to produce After Action Reports of all the Titans' many missions. The reports detailed every single aspect of their fights to include their reasoning for taking down the criminals, estimated costs of damage to the City, and even recommendations on how to nullify the villains' powers to actually keep them behind bars. Robin typically compiled all of that stuff every time the team so much as responded to a suspicious persons call. He also managed a strict budget the city allowed for the team, which included their money for food, electricity, and money for developing new weapons or equipment.

Raven knew that despite the fact the Mayor loved the Titans dearly and so did many of the counselors there were still enough people who didn't like them that their budget had recently shrunk considerably. Raven had glanced at it once, after Robin had for a short time had acted as Slade's apprentice, to help take up some of his duties as a leader. She had found plenty of big holes in the documentation, where Robin had seemingly came up with mass amounts of money out of thin air in order to fix big problems. Like the two times the tower was significantly damaged, when he tried to stop Red X in the science observatory across town which shot half the roof off with a giant laser and when Psycho Tech flew in and bombed the place all the way to ground with hand grenades.

Robin had just produced well over a millions dollars just to repair the Tower itself both times, seemingly out of thin air.

Stuff like that was why when Raven ever saw Robin either taking a short break of his own accord (which was almost nonexistent) or the team forced it on him (which was pretty common), Raven did everything she could to make sure he stayed comfortable. That included everything from using her magic to carefully pick him up from the computer he sometimes fell asleep at to lift and tuck him into his own bed to meditating outside his door and scaring off the other Titans with a scary face when they tried to wake him up for something.

Raven had recently even taken to helping him with the crime algorithms when she didn't have to meditate. She accessed and refreshed their search criteria and past crime data as it became available from the databases the police department of the city used in order to better predict and detect new super criminals. Sometimes Raven thought Robin knew she did it and just didn't say anything about it. But at the end of the day she figured that he was probably so exhausted with other issues that he wrote it off that he had done it earlier at some point and had simply just forgotten he did it. Raven didn't really care if he knew or not. She just wanted things to be easier for him if she could help it.

So she let him sleep against her for hours. Robin went into full REM sleep, as deep as a person could go, and because he was just so fit he hardly needed to even breathe to do it. She found herself checking on him every twenty minutes or so just to make sure her senses didn't betray her and he was in fact still alive behind her. It was foolish to think that, but she couldn't help it. Compared to the other Titans, Robin slept like a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea.

After a while, the landscape changed drastically. The stretched farmlands melted into a deep, frost covered forest. Over more time the tall pine trees became covered by thick white snow and the road became littered by coats of thick powder. She had to slow down significantly thanks to its slickness and how sharply the road cut through the forest along a GPS path the bike had plotted for her automatically. She was maybe about 30 minutes out from Gotham when she decided to wake him up.

"Robin, we're pretty close now." No response. She reached back and slapped his thigh a few times. Robin groaned groggily and finally stirred, absently taking in the surroundings. She heard his back pop a couple of times as he twisted side to side and he yawned deeply, but it only took him a slight instant to come back in his typical laser sharp focus again. "Pull over by that hiking trail. I'm going to drive the rest," he said, his voice back to its commanding tone again.

Raven obeyed and pulled over by a small wooden post topped by a map on the edge of the woods, close to an opening in the thick foliage that led somewhere deeper into the forest. Both of them stretched for a bit while they were on their feet again, but within a very short time they were back on the bike again heading towards Gotham. "I need you to close your eyes for me," Robin said. "I would show you where we're going, but who I'm going to see is extremely paranoid and probably will not be happy to find out you know about it."

"It's Batman, right?"

He sighed. "Yeah…my father and I had a falling out last time we saw each other. It wasn't pretty. I figured we should talk."

Raven obeyed and shut her eyes, just listening to the sound of his voice as she wondered what that must have been like. "What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

"He treated me like a kid too much," Robin answered immediately. "Despite the fact we had gone on thousands of missions together and faced some seriously nasty things on multiple occasions, he still constantly told me I needed more training. He never let me do missions alone, and the missions I did with him I was always support for him rather than a real partner. He had me take care of the small stuff that I didn't really enjoy because he worried about me getting hurt or, more importantly, letting innocent people get hurt. I was always rounding up the minor henchmen, doing the recon then hanging back in reserve if he ever needed the backup, things like that. At the time, it drove me insane and I eventually couldn't take it anymore."

"I feel a 'but' coming up," she said with a small smile.

Robin downshifted the bike into third gear, making the engine rev slightly as it slowed down to around 30 mph as they descended down a particularly steep hill. Raven found herself wrapping her arms all the way around Robin's waist rather than just holding onto his hips as they went, but she didn't pull them away. He didn't seem to mind either. She felt a warm, happy little feeling abruptly thanks to it. It was like she felt happy he didn't feel too crowded with her being so enclosing on him like that.

Plus, she figured he felt it more like a comforting hug than an overbearing embrace while he told his story to her; which is something none of the Titans ever got to hear from him. "You're right," he said, reflexively. "After leading the team for as long as I've had, I've learned to see things more from his perspective back then. Sometimes being the leader means you have to step up and handle the parts of the mission by yourself. You can't risk one of your teammates doing it instead. If something goes wrong, you have to be the one to take the responsibility, which means you have to be the one making the mistake so they don't have to."

"But being a leader also means knowing when to let your team help you, Robin." Raven tried to pick her words carefully. She knew Robin didn't take criticism too well in most cases thanks to his massive amount of self-confidence and pride, something she didn't always find a terribly attractive quality of him. What she did appreciate was his humility and willingness to accept the mistakes of others without reservations. "I won't even suggest I know what that must have been like for you," she said. "All I know is that from what you've told me it sounds like both of you might have been in the wrong a little. Batman should have let you help him more in those nasty situations and maybe you should have let him take the lead alone in some of the sensitive times without holding a grudge. I know you well, Robin, and I've seen you have to do both by leading the Titans numerous times."

She put a comforting hand on his forearm, squeezing gently. "I'm sure after all this time he will understand."

Robin took in a deep breath. "I…really hope so, Raven. I miss my father."

Raven really didn't know what to say to him about that. She herself had a now dead father who was pure evil incarnate that tried to destroy the Earth, and her mother was lost in pain and suffering somewhere out of reach for ever having been so deceived by him and loving him. Raven hadn't heard from her since she had learned Azarath had been destroyed and had no way to contact her. She had no clear idea what would come of their relationship, since she thought of Raven as nothing more than a mistake that should have ended the world. Raven wanted to be closer to her but…she didn't return the longing.

She had to try and shove those feelings of pain away before anyone else picked up on them.

"It sounds like all he did was more of worry for you than the rest of the people, Robin," she found herself saying. "Maybe he was just too worried as a father that his son was going to get hurt. But now that you've left home and grown up more, he doesn't have to worry so much anymore. You can take care of yourself. And when you need help, you have really good friends all over the world who are willing to help at a moment's notice. I think the only thing you have to prepare for now is how angry he'll be at letting me near you right now."

"What, letting you into the Bat Cave?"

"Yeah. I mean, it is his secret lair. I'm sure he doesn't let too many people into it to go see."

"He doesn't, but I'll talk to him about that. For now, just keep your eyes closed until I do. You deserve his trust just as much as I do."

After she promised to do so, it only took them about 10 minutes to get to where they were going. Robin had swerved left and right numerous times, went in circles, and back tracked a few times until Raven was sure she didn't recognize where they were at all. At some point they must have entered a secret pass however, because the howl of the wind suddenly cut off. Raven heard the snarl of the bike's engine reverberate all the walls of a close in tunnel of some kind, like the kind that went under bodies of water in a big city in order to give traffic another way to divert to other banks. The tunnel itself must have had several different access paths because Robin had to turn several times through it until they stuck to one and apparently made it on the final straight away to the Cave itself.

The road had switched from rough dirt on the outside to smooth tarmac once they hit the tunnel, making the friction on the tires very smooth and gave them much better control at speed. Raven felt the surface abruptly change to what felt like iron grating, like on a catwalk in a warehouse of some kind, the moment they exited the tunnel into what she assumed was the cave proper. Robin slowed to a stop and the sound of the bike opened up into a vast echo that told Raven the place must have been absolutely massive.

Easily several football fields massive.

"Stay here for a bit. I'll be right back," Robin said. He gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder as he shut off the bike and disconnected their heaters, then she heard his footsteps clank on metal before they faded entirely. Raven heard only a few sounds through the cave…small screeches of bats, probably hundreds of feet above hanging from the ceiling, all roused slightly by her approach. A few took flight and drifted towards the bike but they didn't drop much lower than the towering ceiling.

She also heard what she figured was fast typing somewhere far off to her left, along with voices. Three of them. One was undoubtedly Robin's, another deeper and grave…probably Batman's. Another one, incredibly, sounded like a woman's voice.

A woman in the cave besides her?

"Raven. You can look now."

Raven opened her eyes and nearly jumped off the large platform the bike sat on and down over 5 stories to a rocky flooded death below. Before she could a firm grip caught her strongly by the wrist and pulled her up, easily as a small child, back to her feet.

The man who held her was striking, to say the least. Raven had seen pictures of Batman numerous times in the news or even videos of him fighting crime either by himself or alongside the Justice League. He moved just like Robin, or rather, Robin moved just like him; both were hard muscled, scowling, handsome men whose every movement was a sort of animalistic grace. They both had the body language of predators ready to attack at a moment's notice. Their backs were straight and strong, knees slightly bent, and their heads constantly fixed on their targets while their eyes scanned the room around them from under the whites of their masks.

Batman was at least six foot two inches tall and built like one of the contestants for a powerlifting national competition who also sidelined as an Olympic gymnast. Even as he swiftly released her and let his arm slip back into the darkness offered by his long black cape she caught the sight of all his pronounced muscles rippling. It was a little frightening how imposing one man could be especially given how he had somehow flat out teleported across the massive room to her in the blink of an eye. She could only see the lower half of his face thanks to his mask. It looked grim and brooding and betrayed absolutely nothing of his thoughts or emotions except for maybe one.

Impending anger.

"Don't worry, he always looks like that."

Raven nearly had a heart attack when Batman had got the drop on her. It _really_ wasn't cool when Robin did the same literally by coming up behind her and putting a hand on her shoulder. "Do you mind?" she barked. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't make my blood pressure even worse, scaring me like that!"

The rich laugh from the other side of the platform made her blink and glance over in awe.

Wonder Woman stood there, on the massive shelf of carved rock that made up the main floor of the cave, laughing at her next to Batman, who had somehow teleported _again_ to a seat at one of the largest computers she had ever seen in her life on the far wall. The Amazonian was dressed in her own uniform of red, white, and blue with golden accents, complete with her legendary gold lasso on her hip and the silver gauntlets on her wrists. She leaned on the back of his chair with a lazy smile on her lips and put her hands on her hips in an amused fashion. "I guess that's what we look like when you sneak up on us, huh?" she asked him playfully.

Batman ignored her as if she didn't even exist and continued typing away on the massive touch pad keyboard in front of him, glancing back and forth between different popup windows filled with multiple paragraphs of some kind of data. She returned the favor by walking towards the two Titans. "So how are you Robin? And whose is this pretty young girl? Is she your girlfriend?"

Robin spoke up first, dodging the question gracefully. "We're close friends. Her name is Raven and she is a member of my team. What about you? What brings you to the cave?"

"Other than making it hard to write After Action Reports, he means." Batman chimed in for the first time, making Wonder Woman laugh. She punched him playfully on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince from the pain, subtly.

"I've been visiting for weeks trying to get Mr. Antisocial over here to go out on a date with me, but so far he's just had a list of very convenient excuses. Joker this, Dr. Freeze that. At this point I figure the only way to get him out of here is to drag him out myself."

"Joker and Mr. Freeze have been locked up in Arkham for years now actually," Robin pointed out. Batman shot him a truly venomous look in response.

"Oh, is that so?" Wonder Woman leaned on Batman's shoulder. "So you've resorted to lying to me now? Really?"

Batman coughed. "It's hard to type with you in my personal space."

Robin cracked a smile at the aggravated look she sparked at hearing that one, but Batman smoothly averted the crisis by saying, "You know what, I'm hungry. Let's go upstairs and have dinner."

"Excellent idea," she said, sarcastic.

As Batman grunted an acknowledgement at something she added he locked the computer with a few quick command buttons, then they both got up to leave. Robin took advantage of the moment to walk over to where Raven had been quietly standing the whole time just taking it all in.

"That went…surprisingly well," he said.

Raven began to respond when something in the room caught her attention and not in a good way. Her magical senses whispered to her in an eerie way that made goosebumps erupt on the back of her neck. The room suddenly felt colder despite all the gear on her body. It felt like a mist that layered the air in a lingering space, covering everything around it with dark energies. For a moment or two its sinister sensations pulled her in to it with strong feelings but then just as quick as it appeared it began to subside. Not completely, but it subsided.

"He must have done some extensive research on you and the other Titans," Robin was saying. "Otherwise he would've treated you like any other villain that might have found the Cave."

"I'm guessing that would've been bad." Raven glanced hesitantly at the rows of weapons that hung on an adjacent wall. They were a massive collection of high tech gadgets, sharp bladed grappling hooks, and quick deployable explosives that Robin had manufactured in his own way at home. The same strange sensation lingered near them but it wasn't the source. She kept searching for it.

"Trust me, you would've had the easier punishment by far."

Robin turned to leave but, perceptive as he was, picked up on her sudden alertness to that particular section of the shelf. He tracked her vision at pretty much that same time she finally pinpointed the source of the mystic energies in the Cave so they came to peer at the same target: it was a heavy old glass case shaped like a cylinder, which was so old and covered in dust they couldn't even make out the outline of whatever was inside of it. Robin instinctively moved closer to her side, his forearms tensing defensively. "What's wrong?"

"There's a serious amount of dark energy coming from that thing…" A bead of sweat ran down her face. "Whatever it is…it's changing constantly. Giving off more and less bursts of power. It's almost like a heartbeat. It's…it's like it has a consciousness-"

Before anyone could react the glass shattered like a grenade and Raven's whole world went dark.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4- Raven

The last thing Raven saw clearly was the horrified look on Robin's face as the entity contained in that trophy class found a weakness in its magic prison, and exploited it. The amount of raw, innate magical muscle required was staggering, something easily well to the standard of Trigon's level. Raven could sense the binding spell was at least as strong as what locked the dread dragon Melchior to his ancient spell book. This entity had found a small crack in the iron bars of its mystic cell and broken them with such violence the backlash of wind and raw force was like being hit by a full football offensive line as backlash.

A gust strong enough to preclude a tornado blasted the nearest other trophies away like jet launched missiles. An ancient, deep, and guttural cry of fury erupted into the cave with resonating madness. Waves of sickly green energy bright enough to be radiation surged out like the sea in the midst of a tempest. Cracks of rock rolled through the ceiling as the voice only screamed louder, scattering thousands of bats with a collective screech of alarm. Through the cyclone of fear and flapping wings that obscured their vision, Raven's stomach lurched as the unmistakable sound of freeing rock shattered through the Cave.

On instinct, she chanted the words to her mystic spell, throwing up her arms to catch the falling boulders. " _Azarath Metreon Zinthos_!"

Her sudden shock of fear of the entity fueled her powers with strength and form, yielding a slanting shelf of dark energy positioned well above their heads. The rocks skittered harmlessly off the shelf down into the chasm below. By a stroke of pure luck, it even missed the very expensive looking boat moored in the pool below by a matter of feet.

Raven sighed momentarily in relief. That boat must have costed millions of dollars and she did _not_ want to be the one to accidentally break it.

The next moment she realized with terrifying clarity just what kind of entity it was. That sinister consciousness flared in her direction as if licking its lips in response to her powers. Raven had all of the blink of an eye to prepare herself before that monstrous aura of hatred and cruelty flew right at her, a ghost of glowing green mist that writhed and flickered like a flame. Before she could summon her power to protect herself it phased right through her body through her own eyes.

Then there was silence. A very creepy silence. Raven opened her eyes half hoping the specter had pulled a big whoops and totally missed its potential target. But, unfortunately, it turned out her classic bad luck reared its ugly head at her yet again. She found herself standing in the familiar section of her own mind. The exact same section was where she once found Beast Boy and Cyborg once in the past.

She stood on a long precarious path made of barren rock floating in the midst of a vast, dark dimension. The cold in the air made her shiver a little, but at least she was back in her standard clothing again.

Since she was here, then the ghost's true form-

"Hunh," said a deep, rough voice. Just as typical of her rotten luck Raven found herself turning to look at quite possibly one of the most atrocious and volatile ghosts she had ever encountered. He even seemed to have a self-amused sense of humor, as if that would somehow make the whole situation somehow better.

It didn't.

"How interesting." The creature turned around with use of his many legs. The great weight of his true form cracked the ground beneath him as they stepped, sending pounding vibrations all the way down the long path. "I have seen many minds before but I have to say, yours is the absolute darkest I have ever seen. Are you a cultist by chance? Or perhaps a serial killer?"

Despite the fact the intruder outsized her by at least six to one and had a tarantula for a lower body, full red eyes that had no pupils, and dripping fangs easily half as long as she was tall, Raven crossed her arms and acted unimpressed.

"A cultist? Please. If you only knew, pal."

His upper torso, which resembled a human with stark white leathery skin streaked by shades of dark purple, put his humanoid hands on the top of the spider's hairy wide head and began scratching it as if it were a dog. A really big, really hungry looking dog that happened to have the most soulless, evil looking eyes she had ever seen. They were like a doll's eyes. Lifeless eyes. They reminded her of a Great White shark when it attacked something, in how they were roll over white and stare in empty space.

It made her shiver. She tried her best not to let it show.

The spider meanwhile apparently enjoyed the contact because it wiggled its fangs in a grotesque way she was certain no normal spider could do. It also somehow tilted its head an alarming amount to one side so its upper half could scratch it in different spot right next on one of its long, hairy mandibles.

It was creepy how the whole thing spoke. It had no mouth other than the spider's down below, just a smooth section of skin on the humanoid part below a pair of equally lifeless, intimidating neon green eyes.

"You know, as I look more closely at you and this place…I recognize this dimension. Someone we both know has the exact same kind of mind, albeit its full of more, ah, colorful creatures, shall we say. What was his name…"

Raven got yet another freaky feeling. "That's impossible," she said sternly. Chock it up to, what, the fiftieth bad feeling she experienced today?

"Oh not at all, dear child!" The ghost spoke with a nearly perfect British accent, as if it had somehow copied the language and mannerisms of a scholar. Underneath the skin where its human mouth should have been lines began to crease and for a moment she had no idea what was going on. She realized with a sort of mini panic attack the freaking monster was _smiling_ at her under that skin.

As if it actually had a mouth under there somewhere.

He snapped his long clawed human fingers and let a whimsical little Aha! "So that's it! I have somehow managed to find not only a suitable host body that can contain my truly massive aura, but I managed to find the Portal of the almighty Trigon! Who would've guessed he had a lowly daughter of all things to bring him into another dimension."

Extensive training from Raven's childhood on Azarath screamed at her to follow logical steps. Establish the entity's identity. Understand its powers. Then subdue it in the most rutheless, efficient manner by means of a violent binding incantation. It was her best bet to survive its attempt to take over her body. It also wasn't her own life on the line; Robin, Wonder Woman, and Batman were all no doubt being exposed to a creepy light show of epic proportions as the two of them battled for control. Robin had training from her on how to deal with some magical threats just like all the other Titans, but he couldn't stand a chance if this thing had access to the hidden potential of Raven's magical energy reserves. It could destroy everything.

So instead of following logical steps, Raven chose to intimidate the thing.

Jagged bolts of jet black lightening surged along the stone path with a rumble so loud the humanoid torso actually flinched to cover its absence of ears. Black flames like ugly little tongues flicked from cracks in the ground following a hiss that could have frozen a wild animal's blood like ice. Topping it all off millions of black feathers fell from the midnight above. Within a instant came a whirlwind of hundreds of birds, cawing with hatred.

A thousand black ravens that screeched and glared with their evil looking four red eyes.

Raven's own voice boomed with a sneering tone that seemed to come from everywhere at once, even though her own lips did not move in the slightest. The ghost heard it above his humanoid head, behind its back, underneath the spider's belly, and even right in front of the spider's giant, murderous eyes.

"You know what? You're right. I was Trigon's portal to the Earth. I was until I destroyed him and absorbed his power."

The ghost glowed with an outline of its nuclear reactor like energy, as if curling up its lip in protest, trying to block her voice from overwhelming it from so many directions. "Impossible," its voice snarled, now several octaves lower than before. "Trigon was a worthy adversary to even myself. A worthless minor caster such as yourself couldn't possibly-"

"Oh, is that so?" Raven snapped her fingers. With resonating clarity the madness she created erased itself with only a hollow chuckle of her voice continuing to echo all around it. At the same time that shimmering aura of will the ghost conjured blinked out, sure as if she flipped a light switch that controlled it absolutely.

The entity's bright eyes bulged. "How in the bloodstained _Hell_ -" Raven gave it no chance to defend itself. Her own will formed into a particularly vicious wake up call, fueled by her emotions. Anger that this thing had invaded the privacy of her own mind. Irritation that its sudden freedom had ruined a very special moment she was in the midst of experiencing with Robin.

Completely primal, blood boiling fury that it dared to endanger Robin's life.

With a shrill ring jet black chains soared from the abyss below. Their tips were spiked with sharp diamonds and they swooped over the stone path like the tendrils of giant hand. The first caught its humanoid neck with the psychic comparable force of a bulldozer with full momentum at maximum speed. The massive body, easily the height of a three story building, slammed down so hard Raven heard bones in its back snap like chair legs. A blast of gray dust whooshed up like frothing sea foam, splitting before her body as if rebounding off an invisible wall. More of those chains snagged its bigger limbs and yanked some together. Others pierced into its ectoplasm body like hot knives through butter. Bright green ectoplasmic blood squirted so violently far some almost landed on her clothes, even from a good fifty feet away.

For a moment, the ghost fought back. Its eerie green energy surged like a gigantic pilot light, growing brighter and brighter until everything just went white to the sound of a roaring fire. Some of the mystic chains snapped with a painful clang of shearing metal and fell off into the nothingness, disappearing instantly. The ghost chanted with what sounded like grit teeth in a form of Sanskrit, redoubling its power as it repeated the same incantation several times.

Raven whispered a counter spell in the same language and wave a hand at the searing heat.

The whole flame froze solid, its sound cutting off into not even white noise. Utter silence. Raven snapped her fingers again with a disdainful impatience.

The whole white hot flame shattered, like a gigantic pane of glass. It literally broke into tangible, massive pieces of thin matter that struck the ground and send shockwaves of force to Raven's feet. The sound of its effect with damning, making even herself wince slightly as it all toppled over the sides like spilling waves of debris.

To reveal the ghost still firmly shackled in its binds, paralyzed like a trapped predator.

Raven felt her heartbeat slow and hit harder in her chest, her breathing burn in her lungs from the exertion of using such high level, audacious magic in such rapid succession. It made her legs feel weak and wobbly like she hadn't eaten in hours and she had low blood sugar. Her toes and fingers felt tingly. Her vision even blurred, threatening to split the image before her into doubles at any given moment. The wellspring of her own natural power was drying up rapidly, unable to sustain so much power so quickly.

So she let her inner demons supply her with more.

She walked up to the heavily wounded ghost and let all those emotions she felt toward it out. She let them slip past the mask of neutrality and absolute containment she always wore entirely. All her hatred for her father, all that had gone wrong in her life, and anything that had ever hurt her made its way to the surface. Four glowing red eyes flashed underneath her hood. Her body grew taller, thinner, and curved unnaturally as she towered over its now cowering form. And yet, despite all of it, she maintained order. Control.

Not total control. But overall, control.

Her voice was steady and her natural human tone. But the imposing picture of her demonic form made it as cold as ice that could freeze Hell over on the ghost's partial face.

"I'll spare you the cliché things you did wrong speech. But I will clarify something for you that should hit home pretty hard, especially since you're about to have your own specialty used against you."

It tried to muster up some kind of speech. Maybe even a spell of some kind. Raven squelched that proposition with the curling of one finger under her cloak, making the chain around its neck tighten to a near strangle hold. Raven leaned over until her face was only inches away and whispered low, making it listen.

"You just got your ass kicked by a 17 year old girl."

Just like that, Raven flashed to her normal height, smirking at the thing. It didn't have eyebrows, but it tried to form them in alarm and fear as she waved goodbye to the thing.

All of the chains but the one around its neck disappeared as if made of smoke, puffing away in complete silence. The remaining one yanked with astounding malice straight out, then straight down. That three story monster that probably ate people alive inside their dreams worse than Freddy Kruger flashed away like a freaking cartoon. Wiley Coyote probably couldn't have made a more comical show.

It didn't even have a chance to scream before it faded into the black.

It felt so quick. The whole ordeal left her in a familiar place, once again alone in her subconscious mind. Except now she really felt the strain of using all that magic and she really needed to return to her real body before her inner demons got the better of her.

At least this time she didn't have to babysit to idiots to a special gate like last time.

With goosebumps running over the back of her neck she felt like she had been standing in an industrial sized freezer for better than an hour. Her body shook like a leaf in high wind and she was pretty sure if she stayed much longer she would subconsciously faint, if that was even possible, and introduce her to a another level of sub consciousness she really didn't want to discover.

With the words to her trusty magic spell she floated up, higher and higher, until once again darkness covered her thoughts.

When she opened her physical eyes, she wasn't sure what to expect. The Bat Cave in shambles, with everyone mortally injured? Batman perched over her with a sharp object ready to kill her to save the other innocent lives at stake? Maybe even the entire Justice League all around, poised to strike?

Nope. Not even close.

The first thing Raven felt when she came back around was a familiar warmth. She recognized the tight, sharp lines of Robin's chest instantly, right against her face. She listened to the strong, rhythmic drum of his heart. The deep, quiet inhale of his meditative breathing followed by a soft exhale. She knew instantly just how worried he was about her just by sensing his vitals.

All of the Titans were vastly different, but most had the same characteristics in a situation that was dangerous. They all tended to have hyper active bodily sensations, like their heartbeats, their breathing, and even the stiffness of their limbs.

Robin was nothing like any of them, though. Raven learned a long time ago that whenever Robin was in battle it was as if ice ran in his veins. He was completely calm, calculating, and more efficient than a quantum analysis super computer. His vitals were always so quiet or slow it was almost like he was asleep again back on the motorcycle. And the quieter and slower they got the more intense the situation tended to be.

So right now Robin was effectively scared to death.

Seeing his handsome face covered by so many emotions of anger, fear, and sorrow all at once and all for her was simply amazing. It also made her cheeks sizzle like hot coals of charcoal and made the whole room feel a lot hotter than it should've been.

"Raven?" His voice was soft. Urgent, but restrained. It was unlike anything she had ever heard from him, even in the thousands of battles they had fought right beside each other. It was so, so much more. He held her in his arms carefully with one forearm supporting her head and one hand stroking the side of her face, as gently as a parent would stroke a newborn child.

"Are you…" he began, unsure how to put it. Okay? Normal? Unhurt?

Raven smiled despite the feverish fluttering all over her body, and not from how wiped out she was from fighting an ancient ghost thing.

"I'm all right, Robin." She squeezed the taut muscle of one of his biceps to reassure him. "Don't worry, that thing won't ever hurt anyone again."

Robin's intellect could cut diamonds, it was so sharp. "You defeated it and absorbed its power." Raven nodded, and with a start felt yet another massive sunburst of power very close to her that had her flinching to one side.

A tall, slender man floated a few feet above the ground not far away, his body covered in beautiful golden armor that mixed with blue highlights. The mystical helmet covering his head was unmistakable, as was the strange sound of his voice. It was like multiple people speaking together, collectively.

"It is possible the opposite of that could have transpired," Dr. Fate said darkly, his light green eyes glaring as if ready for a fight. "I must examine your mind for traces of evil. Now."

Raven touched the ground again as Robin effortlessly set her down, as if she weighed nothing more than a small child. He moved in front of her defensively, his posture nonaggressive. Raven saw past it though and sensed Robin's true feelings. He was really tensed, angry, and very close to roundhouse kicking the glittering master magician's helmet clean off his arrogant head.

"We have a connection and I can tell it is really Raven. She is in control. So you don't need to enter her mind. One person a day is plenty more than enough."

The man crossed his arms and looked down on Robin, and not at all because he was taller or floating several feet in the air above him. His cloak seemed to slowly flutter in a breeze that wasn't actually there as he spoke. "You fail to comprehend the seriousness of that apparition, child. I am surprised Batman has not asked for me to deal with it already." He glared at both Batman and Wonder Woman. "Before either of you interject, this is not negotiable."

Raven was exhausted at this point, and she didn't really care if she sounded like a brat. "My mind isn't some tourist attraction anybody with magic powers can stroll into any day of the week. I am in control of my mind, body, and soul. So let me tell you something." Despite the weariness that was making her start to lean considerably against Robin's back, Raven summoned a force of her will again.

Black energy sizzled above her back and shoulders like tendrils of steam, making the air buzz as if filled with static electricity. Dr. Fate didn't react in any physical way, but Raven felt his power swell an unseen pressure into the Cave as a response.

"If you try to enter my mind without my permission you'll end up like that apparition. And you do not have my permission."

Dr. Fate paused only for an instant. "Child, I am beginning to think you insolence is evidence of evil in and of itself."

"Enough," Robin growled. "If it wasn't Raven in control then she wouldn't be able to answer a question from her recent memories correct? Raven told me someone possessed can't recall recent memories, like within the past year. So if I ask her to answer a question only she would know then would that suffice, Dr. Fate?"

The mystic master's tone became coldly neutral. "Correct. Ask something which Batman could refute."

Robin turned back to her with one of the gravest expressions she had ever seen. It was so sad it made her anger vanish. Her powers went right along with it, like water down a drain.

"When you looked into my mind a few months ago, you heard something. What was it? And where did it happen?" he asked, quietly.

Raven felt her heart very heavily on her chest. "It was screaming. Screaming in a circus. Robin…" Without bothering to think about it, she pulled him into a fierce embrace as he closed his eyes in pain. Raven was aghast, utterly dumbfounded that Robin would talk about something so harsh and painful from his past.

All to protect the privacy of her mind.

Even if it was to protect her from someone else, it should have been too much. Sorrow Raven hadn't allowed herself to feel in a long time welled up to the surface for him. Tears started to put pressure on her eyes and blur her vision. So she shut them right along with Robin, not caring how they must have looked to everyone around them. Right then and there, Raven didn't care anything about them. All she cared about was Robin.

This white knight of an amazing person that constantly took her breath away.

"It's really Raven, "Batman said from some ways away. A knowing pain lingered in his voice, making it sad as well. "Dr. Fate, you may go. Thank you for responding so quickly. Robin, Raven…please join us upstairs. Whenever you're ready."

Dr Fate simply nodded and warped away in a flash of golden light, as if he was never there. Batman clapped a hand firmly on Robin's shoulder but squeezed gently as he passed him. "Take as long as you need. We'll wait for you, son." Raven opened her eyes in time to catch Batman walk away, his head held a little lower than he normally would have. Wonder Woman flew to his side in an instant and to her surprise, Batman took her hand as they began up the stairs together. She looked back at them with a sympathetic smile as they faded down a hallway.

Raven waited until she thought they were truly gone before she squeezed Robin tighter than she ever had. Her mind screamed at her to ask him why he chose his most painful memory all just to answer Dr. Fate's stupid question. But she just couldn't do it. Raven couldn't bring herself to even attempt the syllables necessary for that.

Nor could she bear even the thought of what Robin might say in response.

All of just to keep a total stranger from seeing how truly messed up she was as a person, she thought to herself. Asking him anything at the moment would hurt him even more and she didn't want that. Robin didn't deserve that.

So she stayed with him. She had no idea how long they were there, holding one another in the quiet expanse of that dark, massive cave. At some point Robin returned the embrace, holding the small of her back as he pressed his face against her neck. He shuddered a few times, prompting her to rub him right between the shoulder blades where she knew he liked it. She didn't think Robin could ever possibly cry but she never intended to find out. She didn't let those painful feelings get the better of him even if it was the closest she had ever seen him come to breaking down. He was strong willed about all he did, able to face death without fear or regret at a moment's notice. But now here he was, almost to the edge just because of her own insecurity.

God, he deserved so much better than this, she thought.

No words she could say would help him. So Raven kept one arm around his upper back and used the other to slowly run through his spiked black hair. She caressed Robin like she would've for Melvin, Teether, and Timmy.

"Raven." Robin pulled back before she expected him to, but he wasn't upset any longer. A warm smile played over his face and Raven couldn't be any more confused.

"Thank you. And…I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Robin, I should be the one to say I'm sorry-"

Raven never got the chance to say she should be the one to say sorry because for the first time in her life, a boy had straight up kissed her. The warmth against her lips, the closeness of his breath, the slow motions of how he pushed and tugged on her lips with his own shook her down to the core.

Just as amazingly out of the blue the kiss came, it left her, leaving behind a lingering sensation that she had never experienced before. She felt frozen in place. Her heart had jumped out of her chest, dropped through her legs and feet, and apparently dived headfirst into the water beside the Bat Boat down below in pure shock.

Raven still felt frozen in ice as Robin said, shakily, "I'm…not good about talking about this stuff but…we can later. If you want."

Then he tried for a smile and faltered a little in an adorable way, half hopeful and another half completely terrified of what she might do next.

That kind of adorable innocence thawed her numb body faster than a giant laser. And burned one Hell of fire in her, full of desire. She saved him from the anxiety with a smile so sly and mischievous it alarmed even herself, but all that did was make that fire burn even hotter.

"If that's how you know how to talk," she said in a husky tone, "We are definitely having a lengthy discussion later."

On the outside, Raven was suddenly supremely confident and incredibly satisfied. On the inside, she was so conflicted it was like all those different colored versions of her subconscious were arguing on some creepy path somewhere about what just happened.

She grabbed his hand, making Robin's mask go cartoon wide and his cheeks go pink, but she didn't let him go.

"Now come one, I'm starving. And I have no clue where I'm supposed to go."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5- Robin

Robin had to admit he honestly never thought he would see the day his father and himself sitting politely at a dinner table with each other again. There had been some serious hate spat back and forth the last time he was home but here they were, both quietly eating some of Alfred's homemade steak and steamed veggies across the same ancient dinner table from one another.

Granted, neither of them were actually talking. Wonder Woman had sat down next to Batman, of course (prompting him to scoot his chair to one side to space herself from him a little)  
and inquired into Raven. She wanted to hear about her past, her powers, and who she was in general.

Robin was surprised when she started to tell her exactly that. Really surprised.

She talked a lot more than she commonly did too. She smiled and laughed a few times when she mentioned past missions and sounded happier than he had seen her in a long, long time. Wonder Woman showed to be an excellent listener as well, constantly asking her to elaborate, encouraging her to share more. She laughed and reacted in all the right places the whole time. It made Raven more and more willing to keep going.

In contrast, the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder did their best joint impression of the stone gargoyles of the roof of the mansion. His father remained in full uniform with his eyes obscured so it was hard to tell exactly where he was looking. Robin figured his eyes were trained directly on himself though. Probably analyzing anything that could clue him in to Robin's health and well being. The way he wore his clothes, his mannerisms, the fluidity of his movements…there were so many things a person did that spoke volumes, all without them saying a single word.

Robin didn't mind it if that was the case. After all, he was doing the same thing to his father. It was a forced habit they both picked up over years of constant life and death conflicts.

He had learned enough about his father to pick up on the fact he mourned a recent tragedy of some kind. Most likely there just wasn't enough time to save someone and he made it too late. It happened to anyone willing enough to become a hero full time once in a while. Batman tried his best not to take it personally and blame himself but the signs were still there.

Lines of exhaustion accented on his upper cheeks. His posture retained more rigidity than it normally should have. One of his hands even trembled a little as he slid another perfect square of cooked meat into his mouth, probably from a healing shoulder injury that was making him sag on his right side slightly.

"Jeez, both of you!"

Woman Woman interrupted what must have drifted off into silence from her and Raven's conversation by glaring at the two of them. Mainly Batman though.

"Staring into nothingness, thinking about things the rest of us can hardly guess about. Honestly!" She folded her arms. "It's cute watching the two of you brood but you do it way too often. Would it kill you to just talk every now and then?"

A small, quiet buzzing sound penetrated the silence that followed. Batman snapped a device off his utility belt, scanned the message depicted on its tiny glowing screen, and said, "Maybe later. Robin, we've got trouble."

Without so much as a backward glance they were off in a dead sprint for the cave entrance, both so synchronized by years of constant training their timing barely differed a split second. Robin felt a rush of excitement as he moved, at least until his heart skipped a beat when _both_ of the girls appeared in their path.

Raven scared him a little by phasing through the freaking floor and catching him right in the chest with a tight hug. He froze, flabbergasted.

She put her hands on both sides of his face and planted one hell of a whopper kiss on his lips.

It was an extremely euphoric effort too, especially given she only received her first kiss a little over an hour ago.

"Be careful," she whispered, ever so softly. "And call if you need us, okay?"

A sideways glance revealed that despite years of advanced training and an unparralled tactical awareness Batman had been caught by the cape and dragged into a kiss of his own right beside him. He pulled away from Wonder Woman's smug smile and cleared his throat matter-of-factly. "Of course we will. Let's go, Robin."

In less than five minutes later Robin found himself harnessed into the familiar passenger seat of the Bat Jet as the twin engines powered up with a high pitched scream of massive power. The moment the glass canopy closed the sound muffled more than a hundred fold and he heard Batman mutter, "Hmph. Women. Always making things more complicated."

"No kidding. I was not expecting that at all. Is there a mission at all, by the way? Or is this just a lie to get away from actually socializing with other human beings?"

"Luckily for us, an airliner managed to get hijacked around thirty thousand feet approaching Gotham, actually," he replied. With a click of a few switches, the touch screen display in front of Robin came to life in his spot behind Batman, glowing a deep red. "Your bird. Take us out while I get some details from the Commissioner."

"Roger." Robin's fingers flew over the light touch controls, scanning the internal systems for errors, evaluating the readouts from its many digital gauges and dials. With all the conditions cleared he got a quick readout of Gotham International's METAR; the automated weather dissemination system that described the sky conditions to include important things like the current altimeter and wind conditions. Robin entered all of it before Batman even keyed up the video link he had established to Commissioner Gordon's private computer in his office downtown. Just as the call began to ring, Robin firmly gripped the double throttle on his left side and powered up to full afterburner.

The moment the digital thrust percentage hit 100 he double tapped another command key and set his feet firmly on the rudder pedals below. The massive claw that kept the jet suspended by its tail straight down over another massive chasm opened with a ringing clang of metal on metal. The Jet free fell at first, headfirst towards the jagged rocky bottom several hundreds of feet below.

Then the thrust took over and made him sink violently into his chair.

Robin yanked hard on the stick. The Jet pulled up in a hard G force climb, right into a wide entranced tunnel. Tiny warning lights surrounded the walls as the tunnel weaved and they picked up airspeed and leveled out, hauling ass at nearly 200 knots by time they banked hard into the last straight away. The running lights warped like the stars in a light speed jumped from Star Wars, sending them into one last full power climb straight for the sky above the mansion.

Within only seconds the lights flashed out of view, replaced by the dark night's sky glittering with real stars above and the glow of Gotham's night life rapidly disappearing below.

Robin leveled the ruthless machine into a steep climb right as the Commissioner blinked into picture as a hologram covered a fair amount of the single glass canopy above their heads.

"What's the details?" Batman demanded, immediately.

Commissioner Gordon was unmistakable, down to the classic cop mustache and the wide rimmed glasses he wore, which accented his very intelligent faded brown eyes. He looked more and more tired physically every time Robin saw him; the worry lines just seemed to multiply even though he was really only pushing his early forties at this point. The gray streaking his hair and the paling of his skin didn't dull the intensity of those brown eyes though.

Not in the slightest.

He looked momentarily surprised to see Robin in the jet along with his father, but he moved past that in the blink of an eye. "A 747 flight, call sign REDA6720 Heavy, travelling northbound at Flight Level 300. They managed to squawk the hijacking code and send out a quick distress call saying there were men armed with machine guns and a chemical bomb on board. The military is assuming terrorism, but it's a little too well connected in my opinion. Probably somebody private, with a lot of money and lot of powerful friends."

Batman nodded in front of him as Robin rolled to change course. As they spoke he used the special access software Batman developed to tap into Gotham International's radar feed, alerting him of nearby aircraft he needed to avoid. Quite a few of them were up there. Fifty four to be exact. Robin carefully selected a path to spiral climb through the levels of them stacked every thousand feet all the way up to even higher than their intended target as they spoke. He had to assume they wouldn't suddenly alter their courses and speeds since the Bat Jet was in fact a stealth machine.

Utilizing the same technology that stealth fighter jets the military employed used, the Bat Jet absorbed radar waves and made it impossible for even the on board collision alert systems most high end aircraft had to detect them. But, just to be on the safe side, he tapped another few commands and put a headset onto one ear, slipping in a little pink ear insert that made the sound go directly into his ear with excellent quality and clarity. The system chimed on Gotham's radar approach frequency, allowing him to listen to an air traffic controller disseminate information for Gotham's airspace as well as issue commands and clearances that sequenced the aircraft free of potential conflicts.

"Acey 2155 Heavy, descend and maintain Flight Level 260, turn right heading 360," a strong voiced controller said, completely focused. Robin spotted the aircraft in question turning into his chosen flight path and adjusted for the change with a widened spiral. The Bat Jet bled off speed during the maneuver as their climb angle increased, but the Airbus in question passed harmlessly overhead not knowing any better.

"Begin working the angle for the money," Batman said to Gordon. "Once we get a look at their faces we might be able to pinpoint their organization. Start looking for where they'll go with the ransom demands. Around here, the water is probably the most untraceable."

Gordon's hologram nodded in agreement. "We don't have any other information on the situation up top. No idea how many of them or where the bomb is."

"We'll take care of it." With that Batman pressed a button and the hologram blinked off.

Right as he did, their target came into view. The 747 was a private flight made for billionaires that traveled to some of the fanciest places on the globe to party and it certainly looked the part. The plane was absolutely huge and painted a ridiculous knock off of gold with silver and black accents so that even in the darkness of the night's sky, they could still see it light up with the purple lightning that snapped across the sky. Batman rectified the loss of sight issue by clicking a few more commands as Robin bled off the throttle coming up alongside it, slowing so that they were only slightly ahead of its nose. The Bat Jet was only about the size of a regular F15 fighter jet, which meant the Boeing aircraft was easily over three times their size.

Robin had to be very careful approaching it. As a Heavy classification denoted by the FAA, the 747 created such significant turbulent air from its wing tips, called wake turbulence, that it could easily knock even Batman's multimillion dollar machine clean out of the sky. The invisible spirals of air generated by simply dragging through the sky was so hazardous in fact, that the FAA had a rule that no aircraft could follow a Heavy designated aircraft closer than five miles. To get around that, Robin payed close attention to physics: as the air spiraled off the wing, it sank drastically, essentially making invisible long streamers of death on both wings behind the aircraft that eventually lost their juice in their descent.

So Robin could get underneath the thing safely so long as he didn't let them drift behind it since the wake turbulence wouldn't affect the space in front of the wings in the slightest.

As he carefully negotiated them under its belly the infrared system blinked on all across the canopy's holographic projection. The whole world went red in hundreds of different shades, and turned the huge machine into one giant cross-section of different compartments with endless tiny dots moving inside of it. Unfortunately, there wasn't any way to tell where the chemical bomb was located, so they took in whatever other information they could instead.

"I count 10. 2 in the cockpit, 3 roaming the front compartment, 3 more in the upstairs compartment, and 2 more near the wings. Looks like that's where the bomb is too; those two aren't moving so they're probably guarding it." Batman rubbed his chin as he thought. "I'll take the lower and rear for the bomb. You go high and secure the flight controls."

"Works for me."

There was a brief silence that followed when all they heard was the muffled roar of the 747's massive engines screaming. In that time Robin programmed the Bat Jet's autopilot system to maintain the current distance they were at from the plane, then reached into the compartment under his seat and found the equipment he needed. In only a minute or so he had on a five point specialty harness complete with a heavy duty grappling rifle, complete with a spool of specialty grappling line on his belt, a full face clear skydiving mask, and a small oxygen tank that fed into the mask.

As they both got buckled up, he glanced out the canopy to see Gotham, now only a spider web of multi colored lights constantly appearing and disappearing with the clouds. His heart felt very heavy in his chest as he said, "I'm sorry for what I said. I never meant any of it and you didn't deserve it, even if you were being overprotective."

Batman didn't respond immediately. He seemed to choose his words carefully as if he were possibly still angry. Robin didn't blame him if he was though. Sometimes he could remember how he'd been constantly treated with kid gloves and all he could think about those days was proving to his Dad he didn't need them. Thinking of that made Batman cautious of his mood.

"I had no doubt you were ready to act the same as I do, take the same risks as I do. So it was never about protecting you, no matter how much you perceived it that way and argued to the contrary. Repeatedly." Yup, plenty of anger in that statement, Robin thought. His tone softened a little after he took a short breath. "I did it to teach you that sometimes all those skills I taught you, the martial arts, tactical analysis…sometimes you just aren't the best person for the job."

"When you left I was worried you planned to take on every single problem you could find; every murderer, every thief, and so on. Just like I did. But the truth is you get obsessed with the ones who get away. There are always one that get away or even if you do catch them do so much damage that you still feel like they won somehow. For you, it's Slade."

Robin grit his teeth together from how his blood boiled in response to that name. "So you even knew about him too, huh."

Batman shifted a little in his chair as he started closing carabiner clips on his harness, making sure to screw their openings closed so they wouldn't open up later on. "I wouldn't be much of a father if I didn't check up on my kid. But he's a point I had hoped I would make with you before he ever came into your life. I didn't succeed. The Joker and I are the exact same way. He's the one son of a bitch that always finds a way to get under my skin. You saw how low I went to try and get him; intimidating lesser crooks even for just rumors about him. "

"We're mirror images of each other, Robin. I never wanted you to make the same mistakes I did. I thought by holding you back from some of the things I knew you could handle it might teach you to just let some of them go. I never wanted you to stoop to my level trying to stop what sometimes just has to happen because once you drop into that hole, its one hell of a bitch to crawl out of. Especially if you try to do it alone. I am at least really relieved you had friends to get you through that when all that business with Slade happened to you. I…wasn't sure my voice would reach you if I came to help you back then. But Raven's voice did, which is why I trust her."

Batman took in a labored breath that shook Robin down to the core, even though he wasn't able to look back at Robin. Then he said, "I'm sorry for what I said too. And…I'm sorry I hurt you trying to help in my own screwed up way. I just want what's best for you…because you're my son, and I love you."

Ouch. Right in the feels.

Robin closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His whole body was shaking from a familiar shame, one he never managed to let roll completely off his shoulders like any other stress in his life.

"I actually sank lower than you think," he found himself saying. "I disguised myself as a thief to try and get close to Slade. I stole technology to do it. Slade caught onto it and disappeared. My team lost a huge amount of trust in me for that, trust that sometimes I think I'm still getting back. And the suit I designed to lure Slade in was stolen from me just to create another criminal."

Batman's voice was soft, softer than it ever was normally. "I know."

"Of course you do."

"It's my job to know. I wasn't happy to see that happen, believe me, but sometimes you learn what's right and wrong the hard way. I do almost every single day."

"Duly noted. To summarize, I yet again learned something and apologize for acting how I did."

"Me too. It goes without saying, you aren't an ungrateful brat or any of the other stuff I said. I'm proud of you and the team you lead. I'm really glad you have people like Raven watching over you."

The mention of her name made Robin's heart flutter a little, flashing an image of that uncharacteristically evil little smile she revealed after they kissed for the first time through his mind. For a moment he felt an overwhelming desire to call her with his communicator, but it wasn't like he knew anything to say. It was as if he just wanted to hear her voice again. Even though he listened to that voice millions of times, just the mention of her name made him long to hear it one more time.

Robin must've lingered for quite a while longer than he intended on her because Batman took his silence for the end of the conversation. He shuffled a little in his seat so he could press the mask and rebreather over his face before double checking his grappling gun. "Thank God this whole no talking, awkward thing is over. Between that and Diana pestering me all the time I think I've about lost my mind."

As the Bat Jet rose through a cloud to stay close to the 747's underbelly, Robin unbuckled his harness from the jet itself and gripped a designated hand hold in one hand with his grappling hook in the other. "I was meaning to ask you about that, actually. How long has she been hanging out at the Cave?"

"She's been on my case _hard_ for the last month now. She came unannounced two days ago and refuses to leave until I go out with her. Alfred even prepared a room for her."

"Okay, phrasing, for starters. Secondly, she just sits there and watches you work all the time?"

He snorted. "I've resorted to responding to corner store calls and small crap to get away from her. Liquor store robberies even."

Robin whistled. "Now _that_ is low. Come on, she's a really pretty and nice woman. Why not just give her what she wants?"

"Because, unlike you, I'm not willing to date a member of my own team." Ouch. Shot fired, Robin thought. "If you're wondering why that happened, I have no clue. I don't understand girls at all. I guess we just connected or something. But I'm sure it'll work out just fine."

"Assuming Starfire doesn't get jealous and feel spiteful, right?" Okay, major ouch. Robin felt like he'd just been kicked in the balls from that particular low blow. He barely considered what the rest of the team would think about what he and Raven were…well, what they were doing in their spare time. He went through a small rush of emotion just thinking of Star's nasty temper if she really did go ballistic. But, he ultimately subsided.

After all, the two of them drifted apart since their initial spark. Robin really wasn't too worried about how she would feel. He was, however, utterly shocked his father had dug so deeply into not only his professional life, but even his personal one. It was kind of creepy, really.

"I don't think she'll care. She's obsessed with learning about Earth nowadays. She got tired of trying to get into my head all the time."

Batman paused as if he contemplated commenting further and for a moment, Robin felt aggravated by it. He figured it would be advice of some kind probably along the lines of what dating within a team can ruin efficiency and trust. Both of those were factors that decreased life expectancy in the field in their line of work. After all, why would two people trust each other after they broke each other's hearts through foolishness and selfishness?

He prepared an admittedly pathetic rebuttal when abruptly realized he really didn't have one. Raven was…many things to him. To the Teen Titans. But despite everything he couldn't come up with any valid reasons why he should date her while as part of the Titans. Especially as their supposedly mature, clever leader.

Mature. Hah. This coming from the guy that used to carry a pocket full of marbles to throw at bad guys just to make them fall on their butts for the giggles? Yeah right.

All he managed to describe in his own cluttered, immensely face paced mind was all the reasons he wanted to be with Raven. Regardless of the team's most likely alarmed opinions or his father's cold, sucker punching logic, or Hell, even the friendship he had with all the honorary Titans across the globe…he just wanted to be with her.

It was only the tip of he iceberg and he knew it. But right then Robin realized for the first time just how much he cared for Raven. Her whole life was supposed to just be tool for her father's screwed up plans of world domination; nothing more, nothing less. When he first met her she didn't know hardly anything about the world around her and wanted to learn even less about it.

She found herself trapped both by destiny and by fate, inwardly focused under her own skin, scared of the day she was meant to end the world. Her destiny to act as Trigon's Portal to Earth made her a target and to protect all the innocent people around her she distanced herself from all of them. She ran away so his minions remained robbed of an excuse to attack Earth. Then by her fate as Trigon's blooded daughter she was also cursed by his emotionally powered dark energy powers. Because of the nature of those powers, she had to restrict all of her own emotions so as to ensure she wouldn't hurt anyone herself. So on top of all the messed up crap that haunted her she didn't even have the right to feel any sort of way about it, despite how she deserved, more than anyone he ever knew, to feel so much.

She couldn't develop her own feelings or desires. Pursue any dreams. None of it.

It was a life crueler than an abrupt death to bear the weight of the world on those slender shoulders. Robin couldn't even begin to imagine the pain and fear she must have suffered for so long, until she defeated Trigon for good and forged her own destiny. After all of that, and despite all that her life demanded she sacrifice for the greater good, Raven still continued to be selfless. She stayed a part of the Titans. She saved peoples' lives on a daily basis and even managed to mediate the sometimes volatile atmosphere in their tower.

Robin couldn't even imagine what kind of guy deserved to be so lucky as to help her finally open up all those feelings she kept locked away for some many years. The astronomical amount of character and charisma to be on her level was honestly ridiculous; nothing even close to any typical person out there. The only thing Robin did know was selfish, arrogant, and downright stupid.

He knew he wanted to be that lucky guy. That's why he kissed her so expectantly, why he embraced her so tightly and unlike anyone he ever hugged before. Every time his eyes laid to rest on her beautiful face a voice continued to repeat the same thing into his head over and over again.

She is _mine._ And I belong with her.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6- Raven

Raven felt like a million bucks when she pulled back from the kiss and saw the look on Robin's face.

She had seen plenty of expressions on that handsome mug. Hysterical laughter, stone cold seriousness, varying levels of brooding. Hell, she had even seen him haunted and afraid once.

Just the thought of that terrible night was enough to tug painfully on her heart, but she had seen it none the less.

But of all those expressions that played over his stoic masked eyes over the years, she never experienced genuine surprise.

Not to confuse surprise with alarm, that was. Robin was utterly alarmed all the time. It was actually pretty funny to watch. His masked eyes grew bigger than his skull whenever he first looked at the Titan's financial statements after a pretty messy battle back at the Tower. Sometimes he tried to pull his hair out whenever one of the team blew something up in the Tower even though he knew it was an accident (most of the time) and he couldn't do a single thing about it. He shared the entire team's collective horror when villains constantly proved they could do a lot more than first anticipated.

In all the time Raven watched Robin go about his days she never actually saw him surprised in a completely embarrassed way though. He never blushed, he never showed any true depth to his character besides his overwhelming selflessness to help people. He definitely never acted in any way that could possibly make people think he was unsure of himself either. No matter what was blowing up, crumbling to pieces, or breaking down into tears in front of him he displayed complete control and undisputable confidence. No less than three plans were already formed or forming in his mind at all times ranked from casual to desperate, safe to ludicrous, and from ethical to completely last ditch.

Right then, he drew a complete blank for the first time that Raven knew him. Those nine words she whispered to him might as well been the phrase to a mystical spell because whatever had been going through his brilliant mind vanished into thin air. He stared at her, dumbfounded. His mouth was still slightly open as if about to say something. His eyes looked like miniature dinner plates they were so big under that mask.

Oh, and he blushed. His cheeks looked redder than his uniform shirt.

Raven intended to be all tender and mushy on him with it but as soon as that look fractured out of his perfect little suit of emotional armor she couldn't help it. She smirked at him. Cocked an eyebrow to tease him. Her eyelids closed half way too as if demanding him to respond, amused at whatever he was going to come up with.

Robin's head darted to Batman as some kind of desperate life line, his mouth still hanging open enough for a bird to make a nest in it. Raven was about to lose it laughing when she saw the big, scary guy actually bashful in his own rough voiced, irritated little way.

Wonder Woman mirrored her look and gave her a knowing little wink.

"Of course we will. Let's go, Robin." Batman spoke a little faster than he probably intended to. He also didn't so much clear his throat as he gracefully covered up his first attempt to sound cool and collected; pretty convincingly.

But it wasn't convincing enough for Raven, and Wonder Woman saw right through it like he wasn't even trying.

The two girls busted out laughing the moment Batman snagged Robin's shoulder and slammed the dining room door behind them as they all but sprinted out of the room. It wasn't a little baby laugh either. Raven's sides hurt from it and she plopped down on her butt like someone hit her in the funny bone.

"Well would you look at that!" Wonder Woman shook up against a wall like someone was tickling her. "Big bad Batman and Robin, scared to death by a couple of girls and some _feelings_!"

They kept laughing until a sonic boom shook the whole house. Raven flinched up from the floor as the windows shook in their frames and saw something long and very hard to make out break the sound barrier not even a hundred yards away; at maybe two hundred feet off the ground. The air flashed white as smoke then the figure was gone, so dark it melted into the night's sky without even a flash of its afterburners.

"Whoa! Was that the jet?"

Wonder Woman sighed and took rolled her shoulders a bit, but not in a dissatisfied way. She stepped away from the table and looked out into the sky as if she could somehow actually still see the thing, but stopped to take a sip of the very expensive wine she had insisted on opening for the night.

"Yup. That's pretty unusual for him though. It must be pretty serious; he usually only takes out the jet for League missions."

"Should we…" Raven trailed off the moment she started to speak. Should they what? Follow them? Sure, they could possibly need help but that's why the boys were supposed to call. Besides, it was Batman and Robin. THE Batman and Robin. Anything they encountered, they most likely could handle by themselves.

"We could always ask Commissioner Gordon what's going on. He most likely called them away. Just in case."

Raven felt a small amount of intimidation as she peered over the taller, powerful woman's eyes. The blue around her iris' was as deep and vast as the ocean, full of twinkling contrasts of hue that made it seem as if thousands of lights were flickering. It was just like looking at waves breaking against one another in the sunset deep out at sea, and certainly reflected the character of the beholder. Raven had heard plenty of what she was capable of and the absolutely baffling bar she set for superheroes everywhere through her many exploits. She always wondered what she might have been like as a person though, and looking deeply into her eyes told her all she needed to know.

After all, the eyes really were a gateway to the soul. Someone with magic could look into another's eyes and with only a tiny whisper of will combined with steady contact with a few seconds or more, they could feel the very essence of their being. What drives them, what represents their resolve. What haunts them. Because every person on the inside was typically vastly different than one another and certainly different than how they tended to act, gazing at a person's soul could sometimes be a dangerous experience for the unprepared.

Especially since it went both ways if the person's soul you gazed had even the slightest amount of magical talent. Raven didn't exactly mean to let it happen; she actually wanted to look away. Not so much because she didn't want to know who Wonder Woman really was, but because she wasn't sure she would like what she saw of Raven's soul.

Past soul gazes had proven something inside her was more than for certain individuals could handle. But she completely forgot all of that the moment the effect came to her, and locked the two of them into a magical corridor that revealed almost everything to one another.

Raven was intimidated almost immediately as her body responded to the feelings of those infinite, wise eyes.

Goosebumps hissed up the back of her neck and in between her shoulder blades. Her knees became weak and began to wobble, threatening her balance. Air became cold and scarce in her lungs, forcing her to breathe deeper with long strides that stung as if freezing cold. If was overwhelming compared to the typical soul gaze, by far, and Raven was completely and totally shocked by what she all of sudden just _knew_ about Diana.

Wonder Woman was a scalpel. Her intellect and cunning was so potent that she saw through everything around her, the same way a scalpel could cut through flesh. Nothing got past her perception. She noticed every small twitch, every little quirk or mannerism, and within the blink of an eye analyzed its meaning and implication. Yet this trait of hers remained below the surface of her usual character; an underlying habit developed from her upbringing as an Amazonian Princess.

Her demeanor was her way of relaxing the tension she always carried. Being away from her home island of Themyscira, where no males existed and certainly were prejudiced against, she was a delicate balance of two extremes at all times: that fierce hyper awareness and a patient nurturing. On the surface, she always carried herself confidently and powerfully yet always displayed an almost motherly love and care for any and everything around her. She constantly sought out anyone in emotional turmoil. And with surprisingly gentle care and occasionally stern reinforcement, she tried her best to cure them of their ailment. Nobody could hide their true feelings from this woman.

She was essentially like the world's super Mom; able to see through the bull crap of whatever was going to what the true problem was, and through whatever means necessary would fix it whether the person with the problem wanted it to be fixed or not. She preferred to be sweet about it, but she wasn't afraid to whoop their ass or give them a reality check if she had to.

Which explained why she truly, deep down loved Batman. A man with as much pain and responsibility weighing on his beaten, bruised shoulders represented the very basic meaning of her life: to heal. Except Batman obviously was too proud and unshakably emotionless to let anyone even think he needed some kind of help dealing with all his personal issues. He was the first real challenge of her life as well, because he was so mysterious and ridiculously hard to read. She was constantly engaged in every little movement he did or didn't make, trying to better understand him so she could better soothe his battered, utterly selfless soul.

It was a calling for her. Something that she had recently made the tiniest amount of headway in the right direction, which had only doubled her own self-confidence and desire to be all-giving.

The vastness of what all made her that way caused Raven to feel intimidated. She just couldn't fathom how someone could be so committed to helping people around her in her own way, and even made it the reason why she was wonderful.

It was also why she knew she was instantly in trouble the moment that she realized the soul gaze had went two ways. Her reaction to seeing Raven's soul said it all; her lips parted, her eyes widened, and her whole body stiffened up like something just electrocuted her in a painful way.

Raven couldn't help it; she squeezed her eyes shut and glanced away, curling her arms around herself. She had learned she just couldn't stand seeing how people reacted to her personal truth; the disgust on their faces. The horror that plagued their eyes, as if Raven was about to just erupt into a gigantic, murderous monster that would destroy everything around her with a flash of dark energy tentacles and double stacked red glowing eyes.

She jumped from the embrace that captured her, before she could phase away to somewhere else.

"Oh, dear stars from above…" Wonder Woman's voice was hoarse, whispering right onto the top of Raven's head. A tiny splash of wetness dripped through her hair, sending a shock through Raven's whole body as arms wrapped even deeper around her smaller, slender frame. She could feel a cheek pressed on the top of her forehead near the red jewel, etched in black, Raven was born with.

"My dear, sweet child. I knew you had demons but this…you are so incredibly strong."

"I'm…strong?" Raven blurted.

The embraced tightened. "To be able to deal with so much all on your own until you met your friends and _still_ deal with so much that they could barely understand every day…of course you are strong. Your will is like Superman's physical strength over a thousand fold. You make me feel proud to be a woman." Wonder Woman's hand started to stroke short, violet hair with a measured rhythm. The sensation made Raven's heart melt a little.

Not even a few minutes before she wanted to make this sort of loving effect on Robin, to remind him she cared so much about him. Instead, Raven was receiving it from someone who she was sure had just self-appointed herself as Raven's adoptive mother. Whom she had seriously misunderstood a few minutes before, yet now had complete understanding of to the most basic level.

Talk about one emotional day.

Say something. She needed to say something, she remembered. "Umm thank you. I just, ah, have learned to deal with it. I guess you saw most everything, didn't you...?"

She pulled back so they could see each other's faces again, but didn't let Raven go. Her grip remained quite solid on Raven's shoulders, as if preventing her from getting away from a talk that she really, really did not want to have.

"I saw everything in you just now. The amazing good…and the bad." Those ocean waves in her eyes stirred somehow, like the sea inside them was churning inside a miniature storm. "You know exactly what I mean, don't you."

Shit. Now Raven had no doubt; Wonder Mom knew exactly what the 'bad' inside her meant, and it didn't necessarily have the luxury of being blamed on her bastard father, either. How wonderful.

Ha ha. Real funny.

Her face turned serious and her voice became stern. "You need to tell Robin."

Raven tried to pull away, but that grip was rock solid. She might as well have tried to pull away from steel clamps. "Look, it was a bad time in my life. It's in the past now. I'm not proud of what I did and I don't want to tell anybody about that, at all. He's got plenty on his plate already and I don't want to give him another possible reason to not like me."

Right as Raven found herself saying that, she closed her eyes and let out a small curse to herself. She really didn't want to reveal what was on her mind like that. And she definitely didn't expect to say it to the person who she was completely sure would never let her forget it.

Wonder Woman smiled in a generally happy way. "Do you really think that Robin can't handle knowing the truth about you? About where you've come from?"

Apparently the look Raven made, whatever it was, convinced her that was the case.

"Raven. Sweetheart." Her grip on Raven's shoulders released, and traded for her draping her arms over the back of Raven's neck in a loose hug. Her smile didn't falter in the slightest. "I know you haven't seen into Robin's eyes past the mask. But as someone who looked into his father's, who is almost exactly like Robin, let me give you some advice."

"There is nothing Robin can't handle. Don't be scared of what he might do, of how he might react. He is not going to hate you for what you did or look at you differently in a bad way. All he is going to do is at first be surprised, then understand why you did it, and move on from it. Trust me, we are more alike than you think."

She winked, throwing Raven off considerably. What the Hell did that mean? Had she done something-

Nope. Not going there.

Wonder Woman leaned forward and gave Raven a kiss, right on the forehead. Again, Raven's heart felt like an over stressed pipe so stressed from all it had been receiving lately it felt ready to burst at any moment.

"You've trusted him this far, so don't be afraid to trust him again." Those stormy eyes flashed darkly. "So you had better tell him. Because if you don't and I have to, I'll beat your little butt."

Raven swallowed. She kind of liked her butt the way it currently felt and was appropriately shaped, thank you very much. One slap from an Amazonian princess and she wouldn't be able to walk for a week.

"Things like that can come back to haunt you. Trust me, I have been there. Understand me?" She added, the sweetness of her voice scary all by itself.

Raven felt those goosebumps return and said, "Ah…yes. I will. Promise."

"Good girl. Then go get dressed real quick so we can check on them." As she let Raven go she peered out the cold glass of the window to the dark night's sky and shivered a little, as if the heat weren't on in the room. "You weren't the only one who got a bad feeling about the two of them just a little while ago."

…

In less than three minutes Raven had on her familiar uniform, except since Gotham was freezing cold for the time of year, she had added a pair of fleece form fitting pants and a cloak lined with fur (fake fur so Beast Boy wouldn't throw a fit about it) to the wardrobe from her backpack. She met Wonder Woman in the foyer outside the dining room and joined her in giving Alfred, the sarcastic old butler who made them dinner, a hug as they left the house.

"I'll prepare some hot chocolate for when you return," he said in his perfect British accent. "Do please try to stay warm."

With that, they both took flight. Similar to Starfire, Diana (as she insisted Raven now call her) didn't really get cold. She flew through the maybe 20 degrees plus wind chill in nothing but her regular uniform, despite the fact her legs and arms were mostly bare to the weather, and yet seemed to notice. Her gaze remained on the horizon as they flew towards Gotham P.D headquarters downtown. They also didn't speak for some time, which didn't bother Raven at all and really didn't seem awkward.

They were both worried about their boys, and it was aggravating them both that they hadn't called for help yet.

The police officer who sat at the front desk for any and all visitors coming into the station jumped a little when the two of them finally waltzed inside, but luckily he wasted no time in opening the electronically locked door so they could move past the lobby. An excited, happy go lucky blonde female officer met them on the other side and led them through the maze of office cubicles and larger private offices to a private elevator, which only she could operate with a key on her belt. A number of officers gave them a wave or a whistle as they passed by.

"This will take you directly to the Commissioner's office. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you so much. Be safe out there." Diana gave her a wave as the doors closed and the cart quickly pulled them a good five stories to the top floor of the building, which was smaller than the rest but was all to the Commissioner himself. The sliding doors revealed an elaborate set up; plush carpeting, beautiful dark wood on the walls, and even an expensive looking chandelier in the middle of the room. Some very nice leather recliners were positioned in front of a huge wrap around old styled desk against the far wall, close to a window that ran the entire width of the room. Through its clear glass a fair amount of Gotham's downtown rough neighborhoods and lavish apartments could be seen; everything from bachelor pads that had pools hanging off their balcony's to slums littered with rainbow clotheslines between shabby tin roofs could be seen from the desk.

Commissioner Gordon sat in a place that very much represented his position; a grey area between the rich and the poor, which commanded the power to both protect and incarcerate both of them.

As they came inside, he didn't even look up from the computer her was furiously typing away at. "Diana. Good to see you. How can I help you?"

"What is he doing right now?" she asked. "We'd like to help with what's going on."

He looked up at her then but continued to furiously type away at the mechanical keyboard before him, the thing clicking and clacking so much it was a wonder how quickly he needed to replace one for another. "They're intercepting a hijacked airliner. I just heard from Batman they got on board, so they should have the bomb diffused and the flight systems back under control in the next few minutes. If you want to have a seat they should call back-"

"Commissioner, its Robin. Come in."

At the sound of his urgency, Raven leaned forward a little as if to reach for him, but she stopped herself. Gordon clicked the phone onto hands free and said, "We're here. What's your status?"

Robin didn't respond immediately. When he did, it was evident he was extremely busy flipping switches and pressing buttons of some kind, as well as pulling on something that sounded like wires. "Long story short is we're in trouble. I'm gonna have to set it down in the river probably close to 42nd street and St. Michaels Avenue. I need as many water rescue guys as you can get down to that vicinity ASAP. We also need ambulances for 14 people for gunshot wounds."

Oh shit. That was not good.

Gordon didn't miss a beat and started dialing three different numbers on three different phones beside him. As he did he saved whatever he was writing on the computer and said to the two of them, "Can you two help slow it down before it hits the water? It's probably lost an engine and might stall and fall before he gets close enough to land in the river."

The man's wit was faster than a bolt of lightning, yet his appearance made him look more suited to sitting in an old chair somewhere smoking a pipe and reading a book than his current position. Raven felt a ping of complete respect for him instantly for it. It also made sense why Batman and he worked so flawlessly together.

They were both utterly ruthless in their efficiency.

Diana nodded in reply. "We're on it!"

As they started for the elevator and the three phones began to ring, the Commissioner reached to the window behind him and pulled a tiny latch next to one of the steel dividers. With a small hiss the whole panel pushed out and slid on hidden rollers so the cold breeze flooded into the room. He gave them a smile as they took flight past him into the night's sky. "Good luck. Calvary will be there in 9 minutes!"

Raven just hoped they made it in time as she willed her powers to make her fly faster than she ever had before.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7- Robin

It had been a long, long time since Robin had last done something even close to what he now faced.

All the villains from Jump City were a different brand than those of Gotham. A lot of them were bigger, non-human, and ridiculously destructive. Most of all of them had fairly complicated motives that necessitated that the team clearly investigate and understand things first, then take appropriate action to take them down. Their tactics were normally pretty easy to deal with but a tall order in just how hard the fighting was.

Robin and all of the Teen Titans got their asses kicked a LOT.

But they also always won in the end even if they lost the initial battle, or several battles. So it wasn't too much of a problem unless it was something as catastrophic as enslaving the human race or similar annoyances.

The issue in dealing with Gotham criminals was that every one of them didn't make things so black and white to deal with. A lot of them liked to take hostages, usually had so many members you had to take their organizations down systematically, and finding information on them was hard. Gotham was, after all, a really big city with well over 5 million inhabitants. That meant quite a few sources to check out, lower rung underbosses to interrogate, and in general required a lot more patience than things took in Jump City.

Robin had learned, through many stern lectures and a lot of painful heartache, how to deal with criminals in Gotham. It was also why as soon as they were ready to start the operation that Robin didn't falter, didn't doubt himself. He knew how to do this. He had learned it all like the back of his own hand, and even though a hostage situation like this hadn't come up in years, the reflexes were still there. He knew the priorities, he knew the tactics he needed to use to save those passengers' lives.

The glass canopy slid back into the rear of the jet with a hiss of released pressurized air, faster than they could blink.

Robin's trigger finger squeezed on instinct. Two full sized, rifle-like grappling guns designed for this exact kind of situation coughed over the roar of the world around them. The jumbo jet's four gigantic engines screamed with so much din the Bat Jet's own thrust wasn't even traceable behind them. The air tore at his face, so strong his mask would've been torn off if he hadn't already strapped the full sized oxygen mask over his face.

Not even an instant after he fired he felt contact and stood up straight as an arrow. The harness yanked him so violently if he hadn't already threated to cut off the circulation in his thighs tightening down the nylon straps then he would've probably hurt himself.

In a way no man should ever have to experience.

Batman flipped upside down right beside him, both of them landing in a deep squat on the gigantic aircraft's underbelly. The cold of such high altitude air blasting over him felt like standing in a wind tunnel inside of a factory sized deep freezer. It made him shiver roughly and breathe shallow in his clear face mask, however his movements didn't slow in the slightest.

In a flash both of them removed hand sized cutting saws. The metal of the blades was so sharp and hard it only took them a minute to cut out a big enough hole for themselves, working together. The piece tore free as they both jumped out to either side, startling Robin so much he tried to shout as it spun away into the darkness behind them.

If one of them took a hit from that piece of metal that would have been game over. No respawns.

He steeled his nerves as Batman led the way into the hole, shooting a regular grappling hook inside to pull himself through the powerful air current. Robin followed suit without any hesitation, his grace practiced to an art form, shadowing his father.

They landed in the dark, cramped, and incredibly loud section of the forward wheel well still clinging on to their grappling hooks to prevent being sucked through the hole. The jet's gigantic wheels were easily bigger than he was tall, folded neatly to one side against his back. Their size was unnerving, especially in the deep darkness of the space.

Batman tossed a small ball at the edge of the opening. With a tiny pop a big splatter of very dense red foam expanded all over the cut section, shutting off the roar of the air flow with a heavy splat sound on the metal. The moment it did the two of them crouched down, both already pretty winded just by how much strength it took to get on the plane.

Robin was sweating despite that freezing cold.

A light flicked on, illuminating his father's scowling face surveying their surroundings through his own matching oxygen mask. As they both discarded their harnesses and grappling hooks he gave one quick nod to Robin, then pulled out that miniature saw once again, taking the one Robin had been holding as well.

There was one guard in the galley at the bottom of the aircraft's nose, sitting alone. He sat in a fancy recliner smoking a big Cuban cigar, watching a very nice 60 inch plasma screen T.V against the far wall as he occasionally sipped on a glass of some fancy wine. His gun, the old favorite bully AK-47, was out of easy reach on a nearby pool table that wasn't in use.

He really wasn't expecting a section of the floor to blast open like a grenade just went off underneath it. The force was so strong the thing almost hit the ceiling, prompting the full grown man to squeal and flip his leather seat clean over in alarm. He landed hard and hit his head, stunning him as he tried to make for his gun. His glass shattered and liquid splattered all over him as a strong arm caught him around the throat, squeezing until his temple vein bulged to the surface. Arms and legs thrashed wildly for anything they could reach.

A punch to the solar plexus shot out whatever air he had in rush and he slacked in the grip within seconds.

Robin let him fall as Batman followed him through the entry hole from below. He picked up the assault rifle with steady hands and dissembled it just enough to pull out a very important spring before throwing the pieces casually across the room.

He gave Robin a rare, impressed smirk before returning to his usual scowl.

Time to move.

Batman had taught Robin a very specific set of rules for engaging enemies that covered a very wide set of situations. They all pretty much boiled down to whether or not there was time to spare and whether there were hostages in play, and since there were in this case, that made things very specific. Rule number one for dealing with hostages was always to attempt to deal with all hostiles quietly, before they have a chance to either gang up and try to kill you or before they decide to get cute and execute an innocent to be spiteful.

That being said, the two of them were still in good shape. The sound of popping the piece of floor up wasn't loud, it was just a very startling thing to see and because the plane was a private flight the very heavy soundproofing between the rooms made it pretty ideal for moving tactically.

So that moved to rule number two and ultimately, the entire reason the two of them had a fight in the first place: follow the leader.

Batman never let him go first into any situation where he was present. He drilled their teamwork into Robin's head until it was automatic, so sharp and responsive it was comparable to pressing a button on a keyboard and seeing a character appear on a word document from a computer screen. The two of them decided long, long ago that no matter what their personal issues were they would never compromise their teamwork during a mission by changing up the routine. Robin was always responsive to Batman's movements and signals; he was always his support, his second set of eyes for hidden dangers, and his backup when the going got rough.

Years before it would have driven him crazy, made him angry to have to always be the sidekick rather than lead the way himself. He used to argue so much after their missions for it and only ever faced the same brick wall that was his father's position on the matter every single time.

Now though? Robin didn't realize how much he missed being the supporter. He didn't have the option of being last into a scenario with the Titans; as their leader, Robin had to lead from the front. He had to call the shots and think about the best way to coordinate their strengths to deal with a problem while at the same time consider all the dangers. He was really used to acting that way.

But old habits died hard and Robin remembered how to watch his father's back.

Which was great because as soon as he opened the door into the next room, Batman took flight. Without the slightest pause the intimidating man dived into the air, summersaulting so his cape fluttered loudly, startling his prey. The gunman in old army fatigues flinched when he should've raised his gun to fire. So when that barrel did flip up Batman gracefully kicked it to one side as he completed his front flip, breaking the guy's nose with his other foot.

Robin went low and spun his own leg in a wide circle, catching the second guard in the far corner right in the ankles.

The man careened backwards so fast he slammed his head into some very pretty wooden molding on the wall, cracking it quite badly. Probably gave him a concussion too as he slumped to the floor, a big nasty of a serrated combat knife slipping from his fingers.

Batman's trust in Robin was still so great that he didn't even turn around. He just took off running as his own gunman landed unconscious on the floor.

Three bad guys down, seven to go, he remembered.

The two of them split up. Robin ran past a very expensive looking empty bar with a big granite counter top, across a well-lit dance floor to a set of stairs around the center of the plane, while his father flashed around one side, crouching down to creep in the shadows thrown off by what seemed like a rotating disco ball back there. No music was playing though.

Robin's heart was racing nonetheless as he pulled out a trio of boomerangs from his utility belt.

At the top he peeked over the landing and saw what he figured from the heat scan earlier. The hijackers rounded up the fifty something passengers and put them all on the upper deck, which apparently functioned as the aircraft's main eating area. Men and women in their late thirties sat in expensive tuxedos and lavish dresses on the floor by a massive twenty seater hibachi grill, complete with a very pale looking chef in a white apron and red puffy hat amongst them. The three gunmen were walking around the outside of the group of hostages, all three carrying a gun of their choice.

One sported another AK47, a much larger one toted a very ridiculous looking pump action shotgun, and the last one, who was smoking and watching the cockpit from across the room, was carrying a really, really nasty pistol in a custom chest harness. It was a Makarov, one of the most iconic handguns in the world.

Robin took a deep breath to calm the feverish beating of his heart, sidestepped out of the landing into the passageway, and lunged forward like an Olympic gymnast.

He spun in midair, turning over like cannonball blasted out into the wild blue, and snapped his right arm out with as much force as he had. All three men cried out in pain after a brief whistling sound. Robin meanwhile landed on the edge of the bar, bounced up, and caught the first enemy with a beautiful scissor kick over the neck. He rolled his shoulders and bucked, upside down, throwing all his weight diagonally towards the floor as the gunmen continued to yell.

The move threw the guy to the floor, hard. Robin's body flipped right side up again as the thug went horizontal, smashing his face against gorgeous dark tile so hard blood splattered across its surface. Robin kicked the shotgun away as the other man's rifle clattered to the floor, a nasty bruise puckering the back of his hand so he couldn't hold it anymore. In a rage, the man bellowed like a wild animal, charging at him like a six foot six, two hundred and fifty pound buffalo with his remaining good hand spread out in front of his face.

Robin caught his arm, crouched down and pulled the massive weight over his upper back. The Judo throw was as simple and clean as it could get.

Despite his significantly smaller size, Robin threw the man a solid ten feet across the room. He landed badly part of the way on the handrail for the stairs, snapping most if not all of his ribs on one side with an ugly wet crack before he slammed down to the lower level, with all the grace of dropped refrigerator. He felt the thud of the huge opponent hitting the floor below, even from all the way on the second story.

Robin turned with another boomerang at the ready when someone decided to get brave at the worst possible moment.

One of the youngest men of the terrified hostages lunged to his feet with surprising speed as the last gunmen went to awkwardly draw his pistol with his uninjured hand, blocking Robin's throwing angle. The two stumbled into one another with a collection of snarls and grunts.

Robin took off at a dead sprint for the tussle right went gunfire erupted downstairs, echoing through the cabin in a rush.

"Heads down!" he shouted at the hostages.

Right as he did the 9mm went off. Two flashes went off into the cockpit as Robin got in range and made short work of the tangle. With one hand he shoved the pistol down hard onto a coffee table as he shoulder checked the young guy clean off his feet. With his other hand, Robin slammed a chop onto the man's wrist, spamming his hand wide open and sending the pistol sliding safely to a cranny on the other side of a leather sofa..

That was about when the gunfire downstairs cut off and Robin realized this thug had some training.

He slapped Robin hard across the face, trying to stun him as he simultaneously threw an offhand jab and threw a knee for Robin's crotch. The man was a big fella, full of power, but he wasn't anywhere near as fast as Robin and definitely nowhere near as practiced as he was, either.

The tip of the elbow is one of the hardest parts of the human body. It's also small and therefore ideal for concentrating a lot of force to a very small area, which in turn results in much more damage than a thrown fist or head-butt, for example. Most people think that if you hit someone hard enough with that and send them sprawling back, it makes for a lot of damage dealt.

Most people don't understand real damage is more deceptive than that.

Real damage comes from hitting a person in such a way that it sends a shock down their body; it dents the targeted area and doesn't transfer so much energy to pushing them back. Instead, blows like that compress the target area very deeply, causing sometimes catastrophic damage that can cause broken bones, concussions, and even internal bleeding.

Robin knew this well, which was why the guy had no chance at all.

He side stepped twice in quick succession making a snake-like movement to avoid his knee, swung his elbow in across his chest, and broke the man's chin with a jolt that made Robin's body rebound slightly. The Somali pirate crumpled without as much as a squeak, knocked out cold before he even landed in a heap.

"Is anyone hurt?" Robin called. "Check each other! Look at the person next to you all over for gunshot wounds right now! Everyone stay where you are and you'll be just fine."

"He's hit! Oh my God-" At the sound of the woman's voice, Robin turned and groaned a little to himself as the worst possible person to get hurt winced audibly in pain.

It was the PIC or Pilot In Command, the older gentleman in his early fifties who was responsible for everything that happened on the aircraft and who had the single most responsibility in controlling it. The graying haired man's face blanched and sweat glistened on his neck as he clutched a bright red part of his shoulder, his whole body trembling as he tried to fight the sensations.

"Is anyone a Doctor or EMT? Any medical training at all here?"

A sharp dressed man in his early forties slowly stood from beside a window, his eyes covered by small circular glasses. "Yes…I am a family practitioner. I can help him."

"Good. Help me get him out of the seat. You," Robin pointed to the largest, most muscular man on the floor. "Keep watch on these thugs. Bind their hands behind their backs with something strong and watch them. If they move, tell me but do not under any circumstances try to stop them. I will deal with that."

As the passengers started to comply he looked to the cockpit and sighed to himself. The Flight Management Computer, the single most useful piece of technology on the entire aircraft, had taken a direct hit to the face. The thing was completely dead, shattered into oblivion alongside some other switch panel that wasn't nearly as critical. Robin jumped over the seat to where the older man had just sat, ignoring the blood that was staining his shoulder as he put the man's headset on.

Buh Bye autopilot, auto landings…pretty much automated everything. He was going to have to fly this thing the old fashioned way.

"Flight controls are secure. What does-"

The explosion that rocked the jet was so strong that some of the people by the walls fell over. Robin fell into a mess of pointy switches that hurt like hell, narrowly avoiding a blow to his head against the window beside his seat.

Alarms started blaring all over the place. The cockpit's red night lighting was flaring left and right, different sounds blasting at his face as the aircraft suddenly lurched violently to the right. Robin immediately dialed the four throttles that controlled the engines back, his hands flying over the controls as the other pilot cursed and started to furiously flip switches, double check the dials, and work to get the plane back under control.

"How long have you flown this thing?" Robin asked, as the artificial horizon indicated they were leaning over and diving way more than he preferred.

"First day!" the young guy yelled, his voice cracking.

"I'm taking lead controls then. Call up ATC, tell them what's going on. We've lost both engines on the right wing and are not gonna make it to the airport! We'll have to make an emergency landing!"

The guy cursed venomously again but did as he was told, speaking nervously to the radar controllers over the frequency. Robin pressed the comlink in his ear meant for Batman as he fought the huge thing for control, barely managing to keep it level as the altimeter continuously showed them dropping.

"Flight controls are secure but we've lost two engines, the PIC is injured, and the FMC is dead so I'm having to muscle this thing the old fashioned way," he gritted out, watching the clouds wisp away as the lights of the city got closer and closer. "What's your status?"

It took him a minute or so to respond, and when he did Robin's heart dropped in his chest.

"I'm sorry, Robin. There was one more. He got me pretty good…" His father coughed wetly. He had internal bleeding on some level, probably from lung damage. "The bomb took out two of the engines with debris when I tossed it out of the nose hole. Fourteen are wounded down here with me, not life threatening."

Son of a bitch.

"Doctor! Get downstairs right now! More people need you!" Robin barked. As he did the broken FMC sputtered, sending some shocks over his exposed forearm that burned his skin. Robin grit his teeth as he looked ahead of their flight path, calculating how far they might be able to make it before they'd have to set it down somewhere.

At this point, between the two of them, Robin and the rookie pilot had already shut off the fuel supply to the two downed engines, shut off the electrical flow to them, and activated the fire extinguishers built inside to make sure there wasn't a danger of fire. But the custom 747 was still just too heavy with all the extra interior decoration and amenities built into it to stay at altitude.

Robin thought of every possible location to try and lower it down, but he just couldn't alter its present course. He was having to use too much of the rudder to keep it going straight ahead, so it would be nearly impossible to try to turn it to a large field on the outskirts of the city. He was going to have to put it down in the river right in the center of downtown. Somehow, they'd have to fit the airplane's one hundred and ninety-six foot wingspan into a river that was only about three hundred feet wide, likely with a nasty crosswind thanks to the storm that continued to shake them with turbulence every few minutes.

All Robin could think about as he got on the phone with Commissioner Gordon was hold long Raven would be willing to hug him after all of this was over. Because if she let him, he wanted to be embraced with her all night long.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8- Robin

"I need your help. And Diana's," Robin said between glaring at the altimeter. As if he could somehow intimidate the damn thing into stopping its crazy spinning or at the very least get it to pump the brakes a little.

Apparently altimeters were fearless so the plane just kept on falling out of the sky.

"Oh, we know. We're already on the way. Thanks for calling, by the way."

Robin blinked for a second. Was Raven…playing with him? Her voice was calm and all business as usual when she first answered but that last bit was definitely just dripping with sarcasm. He even caught an undertone out of it. She was teasing him while at the same time aggravated that he hadn't called sooner than he did.

How unexpectedly girly of her.

"You're welcome," he replied, his inflection no big deal, matching the sarcasm and throwing on an extra dose of his own right back at her. "I would've called earlier but a few Somali pirates were determined to occupy my attention. Wanted to show off their guns, smoke a cigar, you know, that sort of thing."

"Well I hope you all played nicely. No roughhousing."

"Actually, they are not very pleasant people. We had a disagreement, they took out some frustrations on the plane, and I was forced to show them how Americans prefer to negotiate. Plus side; it was fun right up until they took out two of the engines and hurt some of the passengers."

Raven's voice went higher than usual, a little frantic. "Are you hurt?" she bit out.

"Well, I'm controlling a jumbo jet falling rapidly out of the sky without a parachute and about to land it in a river, so I think I'm pretty peachy, actually, all things considered." He smirked even before Raven went quiet for a second and followed up in a flat tone, "Don't be a jerk."

Actually, he was a Dick. He bet she'd get a kick out of that whenever he told her his real name. Hardy har har.

"On a serious note, I need you and Diana on a channel with me. Please set it up."

As Raven complied, Robin glanced at the young pilot next to him, struggling to flip through an emergency manual as he frantically checked the hundreds of different dials and switches across the flight control panel. He was trying to trouble shoot any and everything that might have just failed and definitely not Robin's first choice for a copilot. But a glance back into the upper cabin revealed the PIC was still out cold on the floor, a woman holding his head in her lap as another man held a bloodied towel over his shoulder to keep on the pressure.

Robin really hoped Batman was still okay downstairs. He didn't have time to worry about him though; his focus had to stay on the plane.

He had both feet on one of the rudder pedals trying to keep the thing from turning too far to the right side and stalling out by time Diana joined the line.

"What do you need?" she asked immediately, right to the point.

"Help keep me aligned with the river," Robin answered, pulling back the thrust lever to the minimum thrust they needed to stay in the air. The city loomed below them, all the gigantic gothic themed skyscrapers and tall office buildings now clearly in view not even five thousand feet below them. And still getting larger, faster and faster.

"Right before I hit the water I need you to throw the tail as hard as you can to my left and back away immediately. Raven, phase through the fuselage if you can and start taking as many passengers as you can. Start with the wounded on the lower deck then move up towards me."

The two of them acknowledged as one, still listening as they swiftly began working. Right as he felt the plane shudder a little and felt vibration through the pedal, the massive machine finally began to line up better with their landing zone. The tops of buildings were so close Robin could see millionaires pointing and shouting in alarm from their rooftop fancy lit pools as they hit wave after wave of low level wind shear. They rocked and shook every time. It rattled the instrument panel.

Their airspeed dropped dangerously low but Robin was surprised. The other pilot swallowed and pushed the throttle up again to help deal with the inconsistency of the air currents, his move as fast as a striking snake. The jet lunged about as responsively as a pontoon party barge might accelerate with an underpowered single motor, but it still picked up enough speed to deal with threat. The engines whined as if in response to the challenge.

"Nice thinking!" Robin's blood pressure must've been through the roof. His head felt like it was going to explode. His hands felt numb but full of tiny prickling sensations at the same time, like they had been asleep and were slowly filling up with a steady flow of blood again. His heartbeat wasn't a snare drum in his chest. It was more like a damn cannon blast every time it pumped. The sound resonated in his head as if the noise was trapped and trying to escape, cutting off all his hearing with a deep boom every several beats.

"What's your name?" he had to call out, the roar of the engines was so freaking loud.

The pilot stuttered like something horrible, his pupils so big he looked higher than their current altimeter. By easily several thousand feet. "J-J-Josh! J-Josh…Wilkins!" he all but whimpered. Robin shook his head slowly as he watched the plane descend in between a fifty story bank and a gigantic shopping center tower, now so close to the paved roadways he saw the chaotic cluster of red and blue police lights lining the river banks.

"Josh, you should definitely put on your seatbelt!" He'd thrown up a message to everyone onboard the moment he saw the danger of two engines down on one wing, so they would all be ready for this. Josh hadn't though, he scrambled to tighten his two straps in a rush before returning his hands to the controls.

"Right past that bridge, shoot full flaps and all reverse thrust!"

Time didn't slow down. Robin's sensitivity didn't become Sherlock Holmes hyper aware.

His body just moved on autopilot. The rusty old drawbridge sailed harmlessly below. Josh's hand flew over the throttle like the thing was an ejection seat lever. Robin yanked up hard on the yoke, then eased it forward as gingerly as his trembling hands could move it.

The plane boomed from the force of the water, the endless rows of streetlights a messy tangle among the police cars, all flying by at breakneck speeds. It skipped once hard, twice only a fraction softer. On the third hit, the huge thing met friction and physics with a violent rush of G forces. Robin's air blew straight out of his body as the jet tried to throw him clean out of the seat, partway over the mess of sharp looking controls, and face first through the admittedly small front windows. He didn't know if he yelled, if he cried, any of it over the terrible roar of those engines flaring in one last act of defiance.

They choked so fast he could hardly believe it. His neck screamed in pain from the whiplash, his jaw luckily hadn't clapped on his tongue when they finally slowed to gentle push forward. He was scarcely taking a deep, deep breath when the plane lost all its momentum, its nose dipping low as a wave pushed their tail high into the air.

Right. One adventurous, once in a lifetime landing taken care of. Now he had to move. And he had to do it fast.

The hiss from below mixed with a collection of horrified screams told him just how quickly this monster would sink a good fifty feet to the bottom of the river. At least he had been clever enough to set the landing gear before they touched down so it wouldn't sink all the way down. Maybe.

His first attempt to stand sent him shoulder first into the wall, shooting sparks across his vision. His whole body felt wiped out, all his muscles weak. As he stepped forward his legs were jelly, stumbling one after another threatening to give out on him at any time. The back he trusted and trained for years twitched in agony as it struggled to hold up his upper torso. His vision was dark around the edges, all of the blood probably rushing to his head.

"Josh," he barked, his speech a tad bit sloppy. "Get them out of here. Now! Go!"

The other guy looked stoned, he was so statue still. Robin slapped him lightly, waking up those dark brown eyes again to intelligent thought. He didn't need anything more when he focused in on Robin standing up behind him; he fumbled with his harness and stumbled out of the cockpit drunkenly towards the cabin.

Robin touched his comlink, fighting the dizziness that was making him sway. Damn it all he felt about as useless as Beast Boy whenever he saw a meat processing factory or something.

"What's your status?"

Robin's whole body went cold when he heard the gurgling in his ear. Only for a second, right before the connection went dead.

Shit!

He took off as fast as his battered body would haul ass, slid down the handrails like he used to in high school down to the lower deck, passing the line of people shuffling fast towards the open doorway and a bright yellow safety slide to the shore. Robin barked at them to stay calm, noting Raven had thankfully already taken the Somali pirates and almost half the passengers away already. He didn't wait to try and see her.

His father needed him.

The door to the nose galley got kicked clean off its hinges. Robin didn't lose any speed into the room and landed in calf deep, dark as sin water that was frothing at him while shooting bubbles all over the place as it rose up towards his knees. The sight of that tight, unfamiliar space where he needed to go in his mind, now completely submerged, gave him chills.

Robin hated the water. The idea of diving into a potential death trap filled with hidden dangers terrified adults everywhere for a very good reason. There were just so many ways to get hung up on something, too many ways to get trapped away from the oxygen the body so desperately required. Too many people died from it over the years in so many preventable ways.

It was such a gruesome way to die. But he wasn't about to let his father suffer those poor souls' fates. It took all of his years of training to steel his nerves, his intelligent mind to rationalize why he could do it, and most of all his heart. Despite their many differences, Robin loved his father too much to let him die like that, especially if it was just to keep himself from having to take a risk.

He took a deep breath, reached behind his back into his utility belt, and dived headfirst into where they blew the hole in the floor. Before he could look back and let his fear take hold of his actions.

The shock of the cold locked his whole body up on contact. He forced himself to break out of the shell of motionless the cold had molded around his limbs. Pieces of broken ice drifted past him as he dived and put a device he drew with one hand on his mouth, blowing out his air into its mouth piece to clear it. It was a miniature rebreather, developed after he, Starfire, and Raven almost drowned in Brother Blood's hideout a year before at the bottom of the sea. It worked like a charm thanks to Aqualad's helpful advice to the original design, giving Robin fresh, cold oxygen as he started down into the wheel well.

Everything was darker than Hell itself, churning and groaning creepily as the water continued into the plane and the frame strained against the pressure of the depth. Robin paused as he made it into the space, touched the edge of the massive front nose wheel metal support as he pulled out what he needed next.

His body was shivering so spastically by time the LED light flicked on it flickered across the gray metal and wires inside, everything warped and twisted. Got to keep moving. Moving makes heat, he reminded himself, clipping the head lamp over his forehead before breast stroking down through the hatch below.

He flinched with fear when he saw something ripple below it, next to the wing. It was Batman's cape; the extra weight that normally helped keep him hidden and distracted his enemies now was dead weight, dragging him down. He was definitely hurt. Robin saw him try to kick for the surface only to jerk one hand to his leg, bubbles escaping his mouth as he screamed silently in pain.

Robin's arms were on fire now, pushing him through the freezing murk nonetheless. His back twitched again as he came up in front of his father, prompting a sudden flinch back in the exact same way, unsure of what Robin was initially. He stiffened once he saw the light though, so Robin gave him a scuba diving symbol for needing air before demonstrating clearing his device with a little cluster of bubbles. Batman gave him a very shaky thumbs up but did it perfectly, taking in a deep breath that kept him awake.

Son of a bitch the surface was way up there.

Robin tried to try and deal with the Bends, the compression of nitrogen in their bloodstreams due to the pressure of the water acting on their bodies. He kicked as hard as he could for the surface, holding Batman tight to his side by the utility belt, letting out a steady flow of bubbles from his nose as he went. He remembered diving lessons well: a human being ascending from a depth couldn't hold their breath or they'd risk blowing their lungs as they got to shallower depths, because the air in their lungs would rapidly expand with the decrease in pressure closer to the surface.

If one of his lungs over expanded and blew they were both dead. No doubt about it.

He paused about halfway up out of habit, just in case their bodies needed a minute to adjust to the change in pressure. The two were both well trained to not encounter the Bends until they reached depths in excess of around eighty feet. He remembered endless nights that the two of them spent, for several months in a row, in Wayne Manor's Olympic sized indoor pool so they could train their bodies for free diving. Both were easily able to hold their breath for five minutes or more with a level head as a result. So they should have been safe, but Robin didn't want to take any chances with Batman so weak from his injuries.

He counted to sixty as they traded the rebreather, both trying to keep their heart rates down and their minds clear.

When they took off again, they didn't stop until they broke the surface, blowing all of their breath as they got close, forcing them to inhale clean, good old air at the top. They hadn't even been up for thirty seconds, just trying to stay afloat, when Robin felt something flat ascend under his feet, rolling him onto his back. He was too completely spent to fight it, to try to swim away from whatever it was.

His vision went dark only for a moment, his whole body now completely numb. Except for his lungs. They burned like molten lava in his chest, keeping him awake as he tried to slow down his inhales.

Raven's face was the first thing he saw when the darkness lifted.

Her concerned expression with those big, gorgeous eyes were all over every inch of his face. As it turned out, she had already covered all of him with a heavy white towel, already warming him back up. Robin was so feverish from trying to fight off Hypothermia and the urge to pass out he hadn't even noticed.

His body was used to being drained of energy but nothing like what that whole ordeal entailed.

With gentle hands, she pulled off her heavy winter blue cloak and draped it over his body, its weight and warmth from her body giving him an amazing sensation. He felt like all the pain, the cold was melting away from him, especially as she gave him that familiar devilish smirk and pulled the blue hood over his head.

The fake fur on the edges pressing against his jawline was heavenly. But an angel, bending over to look right at his masked eyes, was what had all of his attention.

"Well don't you just look cute?" she teased. Without waiting for a reply she leaned forward and planted a searing hot kiss right on his forehead. She took her time with it, carefully rubbing his cheeks with those amazingly smooth, wonderfully warm hands she had. It made his whole nervous system light up like a Christmas tree. Sparks of sensations returned across his frame in flashes like electricity.

His face started to hurt from the goofy ass grin on his face.

Raven's smirk deepened. "Diana rushed Batman to the Cave. He's been shot a few times but it's not too serious, so he'll be fine. Don't worry about him. Stay here while I help the Commissioner," she added sternly.

Robin absently thought he liked when she told him what to do. Kind of crazy considering he usually was the one who told everyone around him what to do. It bothered him for the smallest fraction of a second before evaporating completely.

Like the chances of that jumbo jet flying any time soon.

Raven glanced left and right for a second, as if checking to make sure nobody was looking, before leaning close and making her voice a low whisper. It was so quiet his ears strained to listen.

"When I get back I'll make you nice and warm," she promised, her voice hot and heavy.

Robin watched her turn around with fire basically burning his face off from how much he blushed. His mind was interrupted from its spirited wonder of what all that could have possibly entailed when he caught a really nice view of her ass as she jogged away down the bank.

Dayum.

And he thought she looked good in a Leotard? Now he wished she wore fleece yoga pants as her new uniform. Then again, that could have been dangerous. One wrong glance from him on a mission and he was liable to swing right into a billboard, step out in front of a bus, or maybe even fall off a bridge mid battle.

And on the flip side if he caught someone with their mind in the gutter? He knew Kung Fu, Karate, Ju Jitsu…tons of different ways to teach some punk trying to cop a feel the errors of that apocalyptic decision. Assuming Raven didn't totally suplex the idiot with her powers first.

She was _such_ a total badass.

Everything felt like it worked out just fine up until Robin's gaze caught something on one side of the crowd of amazed police officers and jumpy passengers. It was golden, like the sun, which flashed so brightly even amongst all the police lights that he still caught it in the cold winter night. His body groaned in protest as his brain demanded action, barking orders at his legs until they finally gave in and complied.

Okay, whoa. Being vertical was _not_ the best idea after surviving a plane crash, as it turned out.

His knees popped about a hundred times as they took his weight again and his shoulders felt a full inch thicker after all those strokes they did in that creepy river. Unfortunately they also felt that way because they were swollen with use and burning so harshly he doubted he could even lift his elbows above his head if he needed to. His metal bottomed boots were absurdly heavy as they took off in at first a brisk walk, then transitioned into a jog.

Warmth pooled out of his core into his chest as the speed increased. He let the now damp towel flutter away as he jumped onto a police cruiser's hood, tracking the golden flash going into an alleyway farther down the road.

With the crowd of citizens now reaching a dangerous amount as they tried to get a better look at the accident, Robin decided whatever this thing was, he needed to know.

His arm screamed in agony as he drew grappling hook, buckling way more than usual as it fired high onto the side of a gigantic law firm headquarters. His shoulder felt like it dislocated as the thing pulled him into the air, swinging him towards his target roof. His vision flashed with waves of white, threatening to blind him from the pain of the whiplash and G forces. Not to mention all the residual soreness from swimming at such a dangerous depth for quite a while.

He botched his landing pretty badly. Instead of dropping to a deep squat on his haunches like a cat, he careened off balance and forced himself to dodge roll awkwardly. The grappling hook skittered across the gravel on the surface and he landed flat on his stomach, his ears ringing from the exertion of pushing his body so far past its limits.

Robin's demanding force of will was the only thing that kept him awake and made him shakily rise back to his feet.

When he saw the source of that golden light, his mouth hung open.

A girl stood before him. She was about his age, slightly taller than him. Thick fleece lined leather boots covered her legs up to the knees. Blue jeans and a slim fitting red hoodie came above that, and a blue ski hat with little ropes on the sides covered up most of her shining blonde hair. Pigtails dropped out of the back across her slender neck, draping long over her shoulders.

Robin was frozen at the face before him. A cute, cheerleader-like face with a few freckles around the nose and her cheeks, a pair of model worthy puffy red lips frowning at him. The green eyes that looked at him with a distant, sad regard were like emeralds reflecting the sunlight. They practically glowed in the ambient like cast from the nearby billboards and neon signs all over the city.

"No…" Robin took a soul shattering step forward. "This can't be happening. You died!"

The blonde smiled a tiny fraction of a smile, filled with pain and deep routed sorrow. "You look good, Robin."

He shook his head, blinking rapidly. "This isn't real. You aren't alive anymore. I'm hallucinating." When she stayed silent, he looked back to her and she spoke again as if she had been waiting for him to say something like that. "I am alive, Robin. There's nothing wrong with you. There never has been anything wrong with you. You were always a good person."

Robin's heart lurched painfully in his chest. A stitch that made him cringe.

"I…I don't believe this. I just…I can't!" He turned, feeling those eyes on his back. His mind raced through his memories furiously, revolving back to the simple reality he long ago accepted. It was just another nightmare in his unconscious mind, bringing up a meeting that could never happen.

"Tell me, Robin. If I can't be alive, then explain to me what this feels like to you."

Arms embraced him from behind, drawing him close. Small hands rubbed his chest, burrowed under Raven's cloak. His eyes welled with tears as she put her head against his tight, hurting shoulders and nuzzled against them. Like she could magically make all his pain go away.

Robin tried to ask so many questions, all at once, right before heard her voice one last time, cutting him off instantly.

"Hush now…you need to rest. Go to sleep for me, okay?"

Robin's whole world went dark without a moment's notice.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9- Raven

Raven's heart went completely frantic on her.

Her violet eyes flashed left, right, up, and down to the spot where she left him but he wasn't there. Robin was gone.

She tried to reach him on his communicator but that didn't work. The signal just didn't reach so maybe it was damaged when he was on the plane. Raven couldn't see him moving through the crowd of emotional survivors among the cluster of ambulances and first responders nor talking to the Comissioner.

"If I were Robin, where would I go…" she murmured to herself, shivering from another gust of frigid wind. Without her big furry cloak she was stuck with just a simple pullover fleece for her upper torso, which was warm but did absolutely nothing to stop the cold blasts from going right through it and directly onto her skin.

Freaking idiot. If he had just been patient and waited for a solid twenty minutes Raven would've warmed them both up. In such a way that both of them would've been very happy.

But, nope. Boys will be boys. Robin's wonderful intellect, for all that made it so attractive, was double edged sword; he always had some sort of agenda on his mind. Raven figured he had seen something suspicious and immediately disregarded his injuries to track it down and get to the bottom of whatever it was.

If he wasn't dead before she found him, Raven was going to kill him for being so reckless. He was in no shape to try and take on a convenience store robber much less a real bad guy if he found one. He had some fractured ribs from the impact of the plane hitting the water, a ton of whiplash, and was teetering on the edge of hypothermia if he wasn't actively doing something to keep himself warm.

So if he ditched or totally trashed that nice coat she covered him up with she was totally going to kick his ass.

Luckily for her, Raven had worked with Robin long enough to know exactly how he liked to work. Gathering a small amount of her will, she focused on the amazing weightlessness of flight and lifted herself off the concrete. Her body felt like G forces were pulling her into the sky exactly where she wanted to go as she soared high into the concrete jungle of glowing signs and glistening glass windows. The air currents were downright violent with their turbulence and colder than that mission where they first met Red Star way back when, but Raven let the sensations simmer down.

Her breath came out in a puff as she continued to ascend, glancing at what places looked most promising.

The fact was Robin operated on a very specific set of action plans based on a couple of factors like his mobility, his teamwork, or whether or not he knew anything about who he was actually after. Batman trained him to be very quiet and observant when working solo with no information on his target, and to always follow them from a distance until their danger threat was fully analyzed. Both of them loved heights for that purpose for a number of reasons; it provided great visibility of both the target and the areas they would likely go, it was a good hiding place because few people bothered to look up when they focused intently on something, and it made ambushing someone very easy.

Besides that, Raven just knew Robin always preferred to be at great heights rather than on the ground. It was just a quirk of his personality.

So she scanned the rooftops for any sign of one of his grappling hooks or maybe a mark one left from scoring the concrete. She doubted someone so tactical and smart would try to take on an enemy in his current condition, but she also knew Robin could be insufferably overconfident at times. So as she flew around she also looked for signs of a battle. Scorch marks from his disc bombs, cuts from where his boomerangs missed their target, or (hopefully not) any big cracks from impacts of getting knocked down.

A small movement on her left caught her eye.

Raven melted her form in an instant, her whole body morphing into a fluid mass of dark energy shaped reminiscent of her namesake. The bird dived out of the sky like a sparrow, trails of magic flowing from its wingtips like tiny streamers in the cold air. The animal cawed ominously as it spread its great feathers and flapped, pulling up its fall to land gracefully on the bricked edge of a parapet.

In a wisp like smoke her real body appeared again in full fighting stance; legs spread wide and low, one fist close to her knee while the other was held high up by her face. One ready to conjure a defensive spell, the other prepared to strike.

"Back away right now. Or I'll take you down!" she barked.

A small framed old man turned to face her, a gentle smile on his wrinkled face. He carefully obeyed her by pulling his hand off of a person's forehead lying on the floor then slowly interlacing his fingers over a short, handcrafted old cane.

He didn't back away though. He just began to smile in a cheerful little way.

Raven's power died like a car with a popped clutch. It fluttered like a miniature jet black flame for a half second before subsiding, as if there was no more fuel to burn and keep it going. Her mouth opened wide in shock.

"Master…Seena?" she blurted.

The old man nodded. "My, my how you have grown, my child. It seems like only yesterday you were a quiet little child level eyed with me. But now you are so much taller and so very beautiful."

Raven went in to give the man a hug when she saw who was on the ground.

"Robin! What in the Hell-are you okay?" she shouted at him. She slid to her knees beside him, making her wince as sharp stones bit into her knees. Her eyes traced over him in a rush as her hands pulled that coat he thankfully hadn't ditched wide open. She felt his heartbeat, the warmth in his cheeks that slowly began to increase as his body's temperature began to finally to equal out again.

Absently, she felt absolutely livid and wanted to smack him. But he was out cold and the urge melted away, instantly replaced with nervous care.

"What happened, Master Seena?" she asked, rubbing his chest to try and warm him up a little. Her eyes scanned the horizon for an enemy as she did so. After all, whoever did this to him could have still been out there, watching and waiting to make a move on the three of them.

The old monk sniffled a little, tugging his robes a little to help keep the bite of the air from getting to him. "I don't know, child. My feelings told me to come her to speak to you. But when I arrived, I found your friend like this."

Raven tried to search through the possibilities as she watched his chest rise and fall, a gentle rhythm that pushed and pulled against her hands as she held him. Her magic senses hadn't detected anything fishy when she first arrived, but she could have missed something very faint if it had occurred. She certainly didn't sense any life nearby that could've been responsible and gotten way before they both had gotten there.

As she sat down, Raven put Robin's head in her lap. His hair was still laid down and wet on her pants, soaking them through and making her a little more cold, but she didn't care. She made sure that his whole body was good and covered under that coat before returning to rubbing his chest with one hand, and running another through the jet black stands of hair on his head.

All tenderness aside, she still planned to kick his ass for scaring her so much later.

"Your feelings told you to come see me?" she asked, looking back up to the man. "I thought you weren't supposed to speak to me ever again."

Pain played across his face. "Child…I apologize for what became of you after the monastery learned of your destiny. The elders never should have made that despicable decision to kick you out, into the cold. You deserved so much better than that."

Raven felt even colder as that particular awful memory resurfaced from the sea of bad memories in her mind, but she shook it off. "I know how you felt about me. And that there wasn't anything you could do, so please don't be hard on yourself for it. I just don't want you to get in trouble if the elders find out you found me and talked to me again."

"They would be furious, I'm certain, but I do not care. I recently learned of yet another horrible truth that you must hear and I will not let anyone stop me. You have every right to know, Raven."

What. A. Rollercoaster. Of. A. Day.

Raven felt tempted to sigh but overruled it. "What is it?" she said flatly. She felt a familiar sense of dread coming back up to the surface and just icing on the cake to the absolutely crazy day this had been. Kissing Robin, a plane crash, and now this? Any more ridiculousness just made her want to curl up into the fetal position in a very dark room and not come back out for a very long time.

"We found out about Azarath, Raven."

"Azarath was destroyed by my father. Along with my mother and all of its people."

"No, Raven. It is much worse than you think." The monk shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, stroking the long silver beard he had grimly. "Your father had no way to reach Azarath from the dimension he found himself confined to all those years ago. He could only communicate with other times and spaces, not act on them. But therein lies the problem."

"Your father trained six apprentices from his prison dimension. Six very dangerous, powerful magic wielders whom each learned a different dangerous skill from him that he planned to use to help secure you, and therefore his link to the Earth. Every one of them was ruthless, bloodthirsty, and as power hungry as he. He thought they would obey him and move to help free him from his dimension but instead they each began to research their own magic individually to develop their powers. They left your father to rot once they learned all they wanted to learn from him and forced him to find another instrument to secure your part in freeing him."

"You mean Slade," Raven murmured. "He revived him and could give him powers because Slade was already dead. He offered Slade a deal to fully restore him to flesh and blood in exchange for him making me open the portal."

He nodded solemnly.

"Okay. But why is this important now if it wasn't before? We defeated my father over a year ago; completely obliterated his existence to where he can never come back. Why does this matter now? Because his apprentices are still out there?"

Monk Seena sighed sadly, shaking his head slowly at her. "Child…the six disciples of Trigon were whom destroyed your home of Azarath and killed your mother."

Raven's heart stopped.

"They did it on order from Trigon, to prove themselves worthy of becoming his disciples. But that isn't all." The old man's dark brown eyes became dead serious. "You alone defied the impossible and destroyed Trigon. You alone, therefore, are the only one capable of stopping his six disciples. And if you don't before they discover the location of the long lost Galleon Scrolls, they will revive Trigon's lingering remnants from his dimension of imprisonment and consume them. The power they gain would be even greater than Trigon's; a power even more heinous and destructive when multiplied with their own."

He bowed his head. "I know you never deserved any of this, Raven. But the weight of the world is on your shoulders yet again. And you must succeed or everything we know and love will be destroyed."

Raven's mouth hung open. She had no idea what to say, only for a moment.

"So they…killed my mother."

The monk took a knee carefully beside her, placing a frail old hand on her shoulder. "Yes. I am so sorry, my sweet child."

…

When Raven finally arrived back at Wayne Manor, she was totally silent. She flew to one of the large bedrooms on the far corner of the mansion, which settled just above the gentle rush of the waterfall covering one exit of the cave down below. With a whisper of her will, the two of them phased through the wall into the room.

She felt like the shadows they had become to make the trip through solid stone. A shell of who she really was, lost in her own thoughts as her body absently went on full autopilot.

Entering the bathroom, she found the handles for the absolutely massive tiled shower and got it going. Steam started to flood across the cold floor and cover the mirror as she went to Robin, lying on his back on the gigantic king sized bed where she left him. He was still shivering, his clothes still soaking wet and his body temperature still a little low from what it needed to be.

She couldn't afford to let her emotions get the better of her. Robin still needed her.

With quick hands, Raven undid his utility belt and tossed it aside. She pulled off his boots and his socks, his gloves and that signature cape of his. All of it fell in a neat little pile by the door. Her face flushed as she grabbed his heavy wet shirt, pulling it out of where he kept it tucked into his pants. She pushed his arms up over his head and pulled on the shirt, rolling it up from its dampness, as she pulled the fabric clean over his head.

She really blushed when she had to take his pants off, revealing him lying on the bed with nothing but a pair of compression shorts covering him. Raven reminded herself this was all to save his life from freezing to death as she whispered her magic spell, lifting him into the air.

He needed to be out of his cold, wet clothes and warmed up as soon as possible.

But then Raven stopped, focusing on herself. She reached down to her fleece jacket with trembling hands and pulled the thing off. Peeled the form fitting pants down to her boots before she kicked those clean across the room and pulled off her socks. Raven stripped down to nothing more than her own underwear; a pair of simple black panties and a sports bra.

She felt so ridiculously embarrassed she almost didn't go through with it, until she saw him still shivering from where he lay on a disc of her magic energy, floating in the air. Raven dispelled it instantly, her breathing quickened as she held him in her arms and struggled to carry him into the bathroom.

Raven wasn't just some couch potato, but Robin was deceptively heavy for his size and height. Her back strained as she pulled him over one shoulder slightly, letting his feet drag on the floor as she waddled into the hot spray. As soon as she got there, she collapsed onto her butt against the wall, pulling him so his strong, tapered back was against belly. His legs were inside of her own, where she carefully squeezed against him, trying to will her own body heat into his sleeping body. She let his head rest on her bosom, so her arms could wrap around his tight, sculpted chest and rub his pale, too pale skin.

It didn't take long at all before the tears started to mix in with the hot water running over Robin's handsome face.

Raven let her tears fall for everything that happened. She cried from the joy of embracing whom she cared about more than any other. For the kiss that he surprised her with, the willingness to be more than just her friend that came from it. She wept for the sadness she felt for him. Surviving a freaking plane crash and almost dying from both the Bends and hypothermia at the same time was unheard of, but nothing less than she expected of such an amazing man. Thoughts of just how amazing he was led to even more tears about all he had done for her, all the times he stood up for her, and how it was Robin who ultimately was the one who showed her she could take control her own destiny.

He had given her so much, given the world almost everything that he had in order to make it a safer place. And tonight that self-sacrificing, virtuous nature that she loved so much about him almost got him killed a fourth time, chasing down something he was in absolutely no shape to deal with any time soon.

And now she had what Monk Seena had told her to cry about.

Raven laid her face on Robin's forehead as she cursed her destiny. She hated the consequences of her birth and all the evil that her bastard father left behind for her to clean up. Having to constantly see the fate of the world shoved right into her lap made her want to be sick. She despised how now that same damned fate of hers was dragging Robin into yet another screwed up situation with her. He was yet again going to have to help her deal with the demons that haunted her life, ever since she was born.

Robin deserved so much better than her, she thought sadly.

Because when it came right down to it, what did she even have to offer him? Raven felt like damaged goods. She was nothing but the worst bad luck in the world, all black cats, ladders, and shattered mirrors a thousand fold. Because of the powers she was born with she couldn't even fully express herself and therefore could not show him her true feelings, the very fabric of who she really was. Most of the time she was quiet, boring, or even downright acting like a bitch.

Which wasn't out of place as the daughter of a deranged, multidimensional sociopath creature hell-bent on enslaving the human race.

She cried more and more, wondering what he could have possibly thought he saw in her.

Her emotions went wild, all over the place. She jumped between feeling happy, almost as if she could smile as she looked at his peaceful face, to feeling utterly heartbroken as she delved deep into the many failures she had as a person. Her insatiable anger for her bastard father roared like a fire in her belly just before longing for all those monks who had to kick her out, alone and afraid, into the world came back to her. She missed them despite their abandoning her.

She hadn't lost control of her emotions so badly in a long, long time.

Time flowed by, maybe ten minutes or maybe even a full hour before Raven realized she wasn't alone. She looked up with blurry eyes at the open curtain, not even trying to pretend she didn't feel as terrible as she must have looked.

Wonder Woman stood before her, still in her own uniform. Blood stained the white stars below her waist, as it also stained the gold on her belt as well as on her chest.

She didn't hesitate to step into the hot spray of the water right along with Raven, taking a seat right against her side, heedless of her uniform. And she didn't say a word as she rearranged the three of them into the same position Raven had with Robin; now Diana was against the wall, holding Raven and Robin together with her incredibly strong but amazingly gentle grip.

Raven didn't try to talk at all, she just cried silently on the strong woman's shoulder, shaking as she did as all of got to her all at once.

"I don't blame or judge you for a single thing, sweetheart," she whispered, her lips against Raven's hair. She pressed her face there against the back of Raven's head as she stroked her arms with rhythmic motions. "You have so much already on your plate and it just keeps on getting worse, doesn't it?"

Raven tried to speak but her voice cracked. So she settled for nodding very quickly instead.

"Well don't be scared. It only gets worse as time goes on, before things can get better. But you will always have someone to be there for you along the way."

Apparently Diana knew some magic of her own, because as soon as those words passed from her lips everything hurting Raven just melted away. It slid off of her shoulders, across her body, and down into the drain. She stopped crying instantly, feeling a rising sensation in her chest that was only getting bigger and bigger the more she realized how stupid it was to think like she had been.

She smiled, prompting Diana to as well. "Feeling better, my little princess?" she asked.

Raven couldn't help it. A big, stupid looking grin jumped up and settled on her face without her permission. "Yeah. I feel…so much better now."

"Everybody needs to cry, Raven. Just remember that. Even those stubborn, brilliantly handsome men we both love. When we aren't around, of course, because they are way too tough for that."

Raven laughed a little. "Yeah. They probably are."

"So. Are you going to explain to me why the two of you are half naked in the shower?"

Oh. Shit. Raven hadn't even considered how this must have looked to her adoptive mother.

Raven swallowed, almost at a total loss for words. "He was, um, really cold…"

"Oh, so you were just warming him up, huh? And what _exactly_ were you doing to just 'warm him up'?" she demanded, her tone dangerous.

Raven lost the hopefulness she had felt almost faster than she out of the blue felt it in the first place. Instead it was replaced by complete and total fear that she could honestly say she never experienced before.

As it turned out, threats from someone like your mother were pretty scary.

"I just held him!" she said, exasperated.

"That's all? You're _sure_?"

Batman's strong baritone filled the room from the doorway, stopping her from tacking on anything else. "Diana. That water he pulled me from was only barely above freezing. I'm honestly amazed she didn't get back here and do this sooner than she did."

Raven couldn't see him with the curtain curled up in the way, but Diana could, and for a moment the two locked very furious stares at one another across the bathroom. Raven guessed he was deliberately out of view to respect her, and likely Robin's, privacy. Yet Diana hadn't only just waltzed straight in, she had joined them to stop Raven from crying.

And now she was trying to accuse Raven of doing something really, really naughty.

Diana momentarily turned her nurturing, yet vividly frightening, senses on him instead. "Why are you out of bed?" she demanded, instantly.

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit. Get back in bed or I'll put you there. And I won't be gentle about it." She all but growled at him.

Shuffling sounded immediately, which must have been Batman wisely deciding to retreat before she actually beat the ever living crap out of the guy. On one hand it was actually hilarious; Raven started cracking up until those scary blue eyes focused back on her and she said, "How old are you?"

"I'm, uh, 17," she replied, her voice a little higher than usual.

"Don't think you're too old for me to beat your butt, Raven."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10- Raven

When Raven finally finished explaining the situation, she was still somewhat distracted looking at Batman's true face brooding at her from the couch across the room.

Even lying down under a mess of pillows and simple fleece blanket by the huge crackling fireplace, the man's sheer size and aura intimidated her. Everything felt too small around him as if he were a giant. The antique he laid on creaked under his weight as he readjusted himself slightly, all the while staring at her with those midnight blue eyes he had.

She was amazed that Bruce Wayne, the leader of a multibillion dollar company, philanthropist, and seeming playboy from the news was actually spending his nights as a caped crusader who beat the ever living crap out of bad guys with his bare hands. Not only that, but he also spent his free time running the decision making of the Justice League, watching over the entire world at all times.

How in the hell did he find the time to sleep, she wondered.

The man's intellect mirrored Diana's, instantly exploring several possibilities to the situation before he finally opened his mouth to ask her questions.

"The entire Justice League, aside from Diana and I, are off world dealing with an alien civil war alongside the Green Lantern Corps. There isn't any end in sight at the moment, so you'll have to rely solely on the four of us for this crisis." At the mention of Robin, even indirectly, Raven felt him stir slightly in his sleep on her lap. But despite all their talking, the shower, and even Alfred (thankfully) redressing him into a pair of simple fleece pajamas, he still hadn't woken up yet.

Raven had really dived deep into examining him with her magical senses but still couldn't find anything that might have done it to him. The three of them who were awake guessed he was still just tuckered out from all the stress of doing so much earlier in the evening.

"Three of us," Diana interjected, giving a sidelong glare at Bruce. He inched back from where he had been trying to sit up straight, his expression unchanged, but did slowly lay himself back down onto the pillows. She apparently felt satisfied with that so she started to rub his shoulder from where she sat on the couch just in front of him.

The two of them were pretty cute together, Raven thought. She was always bossing him around until he finally gave up resisting and did what she told him. And every time she rewarded him in some small way, a gentle touch. He pretended to ignore it but Raven knew it was just a show.

She recognized the same expression on Robin's face occasionally.

"I'm going to take the two of us up to the Watch Tower so he can provide logistical support only," she went on, facing Raven. "Three gunshot wounds are nothing to scoff at and he needs to rest. Robin should be fine whenever he finally wakes up though."

"Yeah. I healed his ribs completely so he should be just fine. Besides that, he and I are just going to have to deal with this one by ourselves."

"No you are not." Diana puffed her chest out a little, giving Raven a very stern expression. "I need to be on standby in case something runs amok but that does not mean I can't go with you for this."

"No, I'm being serious. In order to deal with this, we're going to first have to find the Galleon Scrolls, but they have been lost for centuries. It's going to take some serious digging just to find out where they are, but when we finally find them, two people are required to actually access them according to the ancient legends. Only two, and no more."

Bruce cocked and eyebrow. "Two, as in a spell requiring two very different people to satisfy the requirements to unlock it?"

Raven nodded, impressed at just how sharp the man was. "Yes. The spell that the ancient ones put on the scrolls was meant to protect the human race from destroying itself. It's pages contain some seriously powerful spells that, when combined with other more accessible texts, can generate magic that is at least on par with, if not greater, than what Trigon could utilize. So in order to ensure no one person could try and tap into it by themselves, the binding spell was designed with a number of failsafe requirements both who wished to open it must follow."

She looked at Diana. "As much as I would love to have your help, one of those requirements is that both sexes must be present to open it. One male and one female. That's the first condition."

Bruce snorted. "So that one can't try to overpower the other, huh."

Raven wrinkled her nose at the thought of it and really wished Robin was awake already. But still he continued to sleep, his eyes still masked but otherwise his true self completely revealed to her. His breathing was therapeutic against her body though so she supposed it wasn't all bad.

"More like so that men can't enslave women or vice versa, which used to be a thing back in the day," Raven continued. "Both who wish to access its power must have complete and total faith in one another. And they must have inherent magical natures of both Orderly and Chaotic magical powers."

Diana was the first to jump to conclusions on that one. "I think I've heard Dr. Fate blab on about something like that before. How there are two sides of magic when you break it down to its simplest terms. It's always balanced. So you mean to say that someone who wields chaos magic and someone who wields orderly magic have to be united?"

"Well, not necessarily. They don't have to be proficient magic users like Dr. Fate or myself, they just need to have both magical natures covered, which is unfortunately just something that you are born with. Because Trigon is my father, I was born with chaos. But Robin has innate order within him, just like both of you do."

Diana and Batman glanced at each other. "Makes sense," they both said together.

"It can go both ways. A female chaos type and a male order type could open it, or a female order type and a male chaos type. It doesn't matter so long as they both trust each other and they can actually find the vault where the scrolls are kept. And because of the many ancient wards, entrapment spells, that are said to have been laid to guard the vault's labyrinth, we couldn't take any of the rest of the Titans along either. They would spring the traps and get us all killed. Plus, the labyrinth itself isn't something that multiple people can even enter or navigate. It constantly tries to split up large parties of people, single them out, and trap them inside. Many tales I've read have claimed it has killed thousands of great and powerful magicians over the years trying to read the scrolls."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that dragon Malchior your team encountered a while back read the scrolls?" Bruce asked.

Raven blinked. How in the hell did he know that? She was so caught off guard he actually added on, "I know almost everything about you and your team. It doesn't matter right now, I just need to know if that is true or not. We'll know how to proceed based on what you tell me."

Raven felt embarrassed, alarmed, and almost even angry but tried her best to let it all go. Just the memory of how that bastard used her brought up so many bad emotions she worried her powers might start to slip all over again. The last thing she needed to was accidentally destroy a billion dollar mansion belonging to the man trying to help her save the world.

Kind of a bad way to show your gratitude.

"Malchior," she muttered, still clearly agitated, "didn't read the entirety of the Galleon Scrolls. He claimed he did, but if he really had, we would have never been able to actually defeat him and fully reseal him within that book. I tested his knowledge of what I knew for sure about it several times while he was teaching me dark magic, but it didn't add up. I'm sure he was just trying to brag about it, in order to try and impress me."

She crossed her arms, squeezing them tightly. "Besides, Herald banished him to a dimension he invented on the spot when we fought the Brotherhood of Evil for the last time. Herald told me he has no clue which one it was or how to get him out of it again, but what we can be sure of is there is no life in it for him to destroy and there is no chance he can ever escape from it."

Bruce smirked. "That's pretty impressive, actually."

Raven felt a tug on her lips too at the thought, but it went overruled by seething anger for that stupid dragon. She settled for scowling instead. "Robin and I are going to have to follow the rumors in the magical community to try and find the scrolls. But to put it in some sort of perspective: the Galleon Scrolls are basically the equivalent of the Holy Grail in the magical community. Anyone with any sort of magical power has considered trying to find it and use its power. So this isn't going to be easy by any stretch of imagination."

Diana smiled, showing her pearly white perfect teeth. "As someone who has faced the impossible many times, don't fear, Raven. You've dealt with worse before and you'll always have Robin beside you to help you."

Robin murmured a little in his sleep, almost as if he could actually hear them talking about him and was trying to respond somehow. He rolled on his side slightly in Raven's lap. The look on his cute sleeping face was more than enough to make her take a breath and relax a little; she felt her shoulders loosen up and hang freely again. Her back didn't feel so tight anymore either.

As if to reward him for making her feel just a little bit better Raven decided to put her hand on the side of his face so she could gently stroke his jaw line with her thumb.

He apparently liked that because he stifled a deep yawn and seemed to sink into an even deeper sleep, with a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. And didn't that make her want to wake him up just so she could kiss him.

She couldn't believe a little less than an hour or so ago she was totally freaking out wondering why he liked her so much. It was pretty clear now, while she held him so closely like this. Raven wouldn't have been at all surprised if he continued to sleep only because she pressed against him so tenderly.

Usually he was very much a get up and go type of guy; he slept as long as his body needed to maintain its razor sharp edge but never any longer. There was always something to think about, something to train, some way to be vigilant and very much engaged.

Raven bet something about herself relaxed him in a lot of the same way that he somehow made her feel at ease. She always had to remain logical, not emotional, to keep her powers from getting out of control and wrecking everything around her. That meant she couldn't afford to day dream, to let her mind to wander into things that could give her a strong emotional reaction. Her mind always had to stay focused on cold, hard facts like new spells to learn, books to read, or the missions the Titans had to deal with at hand.

Over time, reflecting on this need to keep herself in check made her feel like a machine. A simple machine, with a set routine it followed every day to the letter, over and over again. It never changed, never evolved. It just existed.

But for whatever reason, she could be illogical around Robin.

She hadn't thought much of it lately, but her powers really had changed as a result of being so close to him. She could feel more than ever before, all the emotions of anger, pain, sorrow…everything she had to lock away before to protect everyone around her. It was just like he just had the key to that lock she created for herself. He knew not only where that key was but also just how to use it to unlock the truth behind who she was.

Nothing to do with Trigon, magic, or anything the world itself had thrown at her throughout her very unlucky, young life. No, Robin felt like the only person who could see the real Raven past all the doom and gloom slung over her head. And when he did reveal that? He smiled at it.

"Raven?"

"Huh? I'm sorry, what?"

Diana spoke one way, but her eyes told a different story. Her smile was small and knowing as well. "You spaced out on us. Something the matter?"

Batman, for all his amazing intellect, for once completely missed the underlying meaning of her statement. Or maybe he just didn't feel like calling her out on totally acting like a girl for a bit, staring starry eyed at the guy asleep in her lap.

"Pinch his nose shut. He'll wake up. He's just being lazy now."

Diana gave him a flat glance as if to say, 'How thick can you be?' Then she winked at Raven before thankfully bringing the conversation back into serious mode. "So where do you need to go for those leads? You must have someone in mind who knows something more."

Raven cleared her throat and took an offered glass of water from Alfred, who funnily enough kept giving Robin sour looks like he was just now seeing a new side of him or something. The liquid was cool and refreshing and she downed the whole thing before thanking the old man.

"I do," Raven continued. "But we have to go a long ways to get there and I'm not sure what-"

"Take the jet," Bruce cut in, wincing as he crossed his arms over his chest. He apparently had some fractured ribs of his own to deal with. "Robin knows how to fly it and all its features. It returned to the Cave automatically after we boarded the airliner. Alfred, could you please make sure it's fully fueled for them?"

The butler bowed. "Certainly, sir. I'd like nothing more than to smell like JP8 for a week. Oh, goody."

Raven almost snickered at the guy's sarcasm as he left, at least until Diana stood up to her full height and went right back into full on boss mode again. "All right then. Raven, go ahead and wake Robin; you can sleep while he flies you two to wherever it is. You need to get going as soon as possible. And you," her steely gaze turned on Bruce. "Get to sleep. You can set up a cot in the Cave if you absolutely have to, but if Alfred tells me you stayed up all night on the crime scanners I'll knock you out."

Bruce snorted and started to try to rise, but he groaned from the pain of trying to swing his leg off the couch. Diana stopped his fidgeting and wincing by instead scooping him up into her arms, taking his considerable weight as if he were nothing more than a small child. Despite this, she was very careful on how she held him so that he barely protested at all from the pain.

Raven almost laughed when he seemed to disregard entirely that he was in fact being carried at all and gave her a very serious, hard to read expression. "You need help, call. I'll always be able to answer. Diana may have other threats to take care of, but if I have to I'll coordinate assistance for you through any means necessary. So be safe."

Diana bent over (heedless of Bruce cursing quietly from it) and gave Raven a kiss on her forehead; a warmth that made her feel so happy she had to blink several times as a result. Then the two of them disappeared down a hallway, melting into the darkness of the rest of the mansion as if they'd never been there at all.

Raven wondered if that was what it felt like, having caring parents.

But they were right; she didn't have time to play around. Moving as quickly as she could, she phased through the floor still carrying Robin to grab their bags, then glided swiftly past the wall into the Cave itself. As she did, Alfred passed them walking back up the stairs, with the Bat Jet sitting promptly on the large shelf like platform where Robin had parked his motorcycle only hours earlier.

"Good luck, Miss Raven. I promise to have tea prepared when you return, assuming it doesn't reek of jet fuel, of course."

Her cheeks dimpled in a smile. "Thank you, Alfred. I'll see you soon."

And just like that, she found them both alone again. She waited until she was completely sure Alfred was out of the Cave and well into the house before she lowered Robin down into her arms again, releasing the power she used to carry him and their things the whole way.

Waking Robin up in a simple, gentle manner went out the window. Raven couldn't help what had been on her mind the moment she had finally gotten her hands on him again after that insane plane crash.

She kissed him slowly, lightly at first. Felt the subtle sensation of their lips brushing ever so softly against one another, exploring every curve and shape she felt against her mouth with the tiniest of movements. He stirred, only in the smallest fraction of a way. His voice came out in a quiet, natural whisper that was more of a subconscious recognition than anything else.

So she stepped it up a notch, pushing deeper against him. She felt the wetness past what she first experienced and reveled in it, tilting her head this way and that as her hands adjusted how she held him. They slid away from his tight, built deltoid muscles to the long, sculpted lats running alongside his back with one hand while the other drifted playfully to his side, sliding sensually towards the amazing abs she knew he had.

All the while she raised the tempo her kissing him. She moved her lips faster and slower, alternating trying to push him with tugging on his bottom lip mischievously. She felt his consciousness return, hazy at first.

But as soon as the razor's edge of his mind came back he reacted.

Robin lurched away from her, his speed like lightning. His whole body just disregarded the laws of physics entirely, blurring in two rapid back steps that opened up the distance between the two of them instantly. On the second he arched backwards, one hand snapping on the floor with a loud clap and he summersaulted a solid ten feet away.

Where he landed in a very, very dangerous fighting stance that she knew all too well.

"Robin, it's just me!" she called out to him, stretching out a hand for him.

For a split second, her whole world seemed to freeze. Her heart felt like it stopped completely, burning with pain as it struggled to try and continue its life generating work inside her chest. Her lungs felt tighter than a pair of giant rubber bands, pulled almost to the breaking point as she held her breath.

She had never felt so scared in her life, seeing him stare her down like he was ready to kill her.

Robin blinked, hard. Two more times. Opened his mouth to let out a deep, deep breath he had been holding. But he carefully realized just what had happened in rapid succession and grit his teeth, sweat beading on his brow. His body slowly loosened itself back to his standing posture again as if it were resisting his commands, stiffly trying to stay ready to fight something.

Or someone.

That mysterious gaze of his white masked eyes rested on the floor away from his body, focused on the space between him and solid ground for the smallest fraction of a second before he looked back up to her, his breathing a little rougher than usual.

When his eyes saw her expression they instantly widened in fright. "Raven…I'm sorry." He walked back to her quickly, stopping just short of where she still stared at him, unsure what to think. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked quickly.

Raven's body returned to a state loosely resembling normal, her heartbeat now pounding inside her again and her breath returning in a whoosh. "No, I'm fine. What's wrong?"

Robin reached out to her, stopping short of touching her as if he was afraid of how she was going to react now. The look of regret on his face was almost as haunting as when she had seen him think he was battling Slade, back in Titans Tower. Raven was not about to deal with that kind of shit again so she didn't pull him in so much as totally bear hug him, not giving him a say so in the matter at all.

She really did not want to see him wander between the extremes of anger and fear like that again. She would never let something mess with his head like that again. Period.

"Talk to me," she whispered in his ear. "I know something's wrong." Before he could add another apology, which she figured was coming, she added, "I don't care about the freak out. I'm okay, see?" To illustrate this, she pulled back and kissed his cheek, looking right into the whites of his masked eyes. She could almost see through them, almost make out the outlines of where his real eyes were underneath the mask from so close to him. "You just jumped back all of a sudden, that's all," she continued, just in case he wasn't sure.

He frowned. "Wait, why is the jet on the pad down here?"

Shit. "We…we're going to have to take care of something. Just the two of us. But I can explain on the way."

Robin paused, glancing at their bags lying on the ground beside them. Then he adopted that familiar, dead serious, mission-oriented poise about him that she knew all too well. "Okay. Let's get going then. I'm guessing we don't have a lot of time. And I'm fine too, Raven. Really. I just…had a really bad nightmare, that's all."

He pulled away from her arms in a rush, turning to gather their bags, showing his back. And Raven couldn't help but wonder if that was truth, or if he was just brushing her off.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11- Raven

Under normal circumstances, Raven probably would have be ecstatic to be flying in the Bat Jet.

She wasn't especially into technology and gadgets on account of the whole 'using magic' thing but she was still probably the Titans' third most proficient user of it after Cyborg and Robin. Beast Boy continued to hold a record for completely useless on the subject while Starfire had a track record for occasionally getting impatient with it and 'accidentally' destroying it. Her Tamaranian temper leveled out significantly since she joined the team, but it did still exist after all. And apparently it didn't agree too much with things like running a system maintenance program or even the crime scanner (which was essentially just a point and click sort of thing).

So, yeah. She had to admit the absolute mess of switches and colorful lights of the copilot seat still managed to dazzle her fancy, if only a little. There had to have been more than twice the number of controls in the thing than a comparable jet fighter of a similar design. She suspected it was due to the fact everything in the jet was all custom made stuff, designed by the research teams of Wayne Enterprises to one up the technology on fighter jets already on the market.

Raven could not figure out how in the Hell Batman managed to put all those designs together and build an experimental aircraft out of them all by himself without someone from the company noticing. Even better question than that was how he managed to maintain the thing by himself, or for that manner, acquire all the materials for it without somehow revealing his nightly activities as a caped crusader.

Robin did the same thing, too. That was the even crazier part of really thinking about how they had all of the stuff that they did. He always seemed to have new tools, new parts, and all kinds of random, really expensive looking things that the team had never once questioned how he got them.

The father and son duo apparently could ninja up a lot more than just a Kung Fu ass kicking.

Unfortunately, the initial wow of strapping herself in and nearly peeing herself from that incredibly sketchy looking takeoff tunnel thing died off really quick after they started to climb into the night's sky.

Robin violently jumping away from her touch kept on playing over and over in her mind the whole way. It was like she was some sort of creature trying to eat his face off or something.

What had caused him to act like that? Raven had seen many ways he reacted to a lot of different scenarios, but she never experienced anything like that before. The look of how his mask narrowed, scrunching up tight, had been classic fighting mindset for him; he was unsure what was going on, so he opened up the distance between the two of them to assess what was happening before coming back in to attack if need be.

But when she thought deeply about it, his posture wasn't exactly in synch with what his mind told it to do.

His form definitely reminded her of one of his most dangerous fighting styles in a general sense, however it had uncharacteristic sloppiness to it. She remembered his feet were too close together, neglecting the balance that he always harped on the team to respect in close combat lessons. His guard for the style was supposed to be one fist raised high up against his cheek; a modified boxing technique that allowed him to block any blow by simply swinging his elbow up towards his head. But he let that slip badly too by dropping his hand down to only chest height, which left a huge gap in protecting his head as the technique was primarily used for.

They seemed like little things to the untrained eye. Raven knew just how dangerous those little mistakes were in a real fight though. She also knew Robin knew this even better than any of the other Titans since he was the team's expert on close range, hand to hand combat.

Something had thrown him off his game, made him forget all those finer details that ordinarily made him such a dangerous opponent and a powerful ally in battle. His reaction was halfhearted; torn between instincts that Batman drilled into his head ever since he began training him and between something else.

Raven had a distinct impression it was something like disbelief.

And when he brushed it all off by calling it just a nightmare? Raven was certain he was hiding something from her now, after really reflecting on those details.

Which was why they were now stuck in a really awkward rut. Raven didn't want to just outright call him out on his lying to her even though she was pretty darn sure he really did. For one thing, she didn't take it personally. It was stupid to think that something she did made him flip out like that after all she had done was take care of him so sweetly lately; it was obvious the problem wasn't Raven herself. Another reason she didn't want to confront him about it was down to Robin's personality and not an aspect of it she really liked about him.

Robin wasn't the kind of guy to take confrontations well. She had seen it hundreds, if not thousands, of times when Starfire used to chase him down all the time to get his attention. She didn't really blame him for it either, considering all he had gone through. Batman was probably the same exact way. They both were men who had to make some really tough decisions that could end peoples' lives if they chose wrong, and they had to do it often. Very, very often.

So they didn't appreciate when people tried to second guess their confidence, their intelligence, or a lot of things about themselves. Raven had seen Robin get pretty stand offish with Cyborg a few times because of it, almost get into a hallway death match with Beast Boy because of it, and had seen him and Starfire argue way too many times to count just because Star just did not read him that well.

Which was why Raven didn't really like that aspect of his personality, even though she admitted it made sense based on all he went through all the time. It was a pain in the ass sometimes, but it was way easier to just wait for Robin to realize his own mistakes (maybe with a very tiny prod in the right direction) and let him admit it on his own terms, then apologize accordingly.

Raven didn't like to wait. She would much rather the two of them just open up to each other and actually talk about it instead of doing the whole 'let's pretend this didn't happen' game. Who knows, maybe she could even find a way to actually help him.

The idea of being rewarded for said help sent her mind on a delightful journey to the gutter for a short, too short moment before he surprised her by finally breaking the silence.

"Hey, so, where are we going?" he asked. "We're almost at a good cruising altitude now."

Ah. Right. Raven had told him the whole ordeal with the Six Disciples of Trigon as the packed the jet, told him about her encounter with Seena, and also told him that she had no information on who they were but she did however have a plan to find them.

But she totally forgot to tell him where to actually set course for. Her mind went into total analytical mode on his mini freak out right after they took off. Oops.

"It's in the Chinese mountains, in the southern slopes. I'll have to guide us magically whenever we get close since it's really tricky to locate."

The Jet instantly rolled in response, pulling a tight but not overly ridiculous turn in the corrected direction. They effectively had to make a U turn in the sky for it since he had them steered in the complete wrong direction.

Raven bet if Bruce was watching their locator beacon on the super computer down in Cave (which she was sure he was, despite all of Diana's threats) he probably shook his head as if they were both idiots.

"What is 'it' we're looking for?" Robin asked, flipping a couple of switches to set the cruise control. While he did he also flicked a few other switches and the whole cockpit went into some kind of mode; all the multicolored lights that she guessed were specifically for normal flying changed into a uniform shade of dark red glow on the panels. The whole cockpit dimmed instantly, giving her a much clearer view of the night's sky all around them.

She almost jumped a little when she saw just how close a passing regional jet was.

"Raven?"

"Huh? Um, what?"

He paused for a second, as if carefully considering his words. "You're acting really strange right now," he said, after a time.

Raven thought that was pretty rich coming from a guy who summersaulted away from a damn good wake up call. Honestly, what kind of guy pulls a stunt like that? She may have not been super good at kissing, but damn.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're usually way more to the point about something this serious by now. Plus you just kind of put on a show about looking at that jet but I know that's not what's on your mind right now."

Oh, hello mister kettle. Mister pot called; he said you're black. And in other news apparently Robin was totally fine in calling out whatever he thought of other people while at the same time not okay in the slightest when the same thing was thrown into his lap.

"What's wrong? Something has to be bothering you. And its not this problem we've got to figure out."

Damn it. Raven had been a little roll after the hypocrisy, forming a nice jab about what happened in the Cave. She was almost about to disregard her own logic and throw the confrontation at him like fricking elbow in his side but, always so clever, Robin diverted that little disaster in the making by actually caring.

You know, like a nice guy.

Normally she would've been thrilled that he was being so attentive to her, but she felt admittedly put off as a result. She really wanted to still take that shot at him but now she just couldn't bring herself to do it. So maybe he was more of being a jerk after all.

"There's something you don't want to tell me, isn't there?" Robin said, his tone utterly neutral. Raven couldn't see his face, but she bet if she did he would've been masked not just over his eyes. His whole face probably wouldn't have given away a single thought in his head to her.

Double damn it. He'd even picked up on her avoiding the inevitable, too.

But, she had promised her scary adoptive mother she would tell him the truth and she saw no other way to get the information she needed, so she had to tell him.

"Okay, fine. Yes, I have been trying to stall and think of another way to find out more about these disciple guys. But I don't have anything, so I guess we're just going to have to see him."

Robin perked up. "Him? Who is him?"

Oh, ho! Was that jealousy she just detected? Maybe Raven felt like forgiving Robin's little freak out slightly more now. Only slightly, of course.

"He…is who I consider my real father. And his name is Meliodas."

Robin seemed so utterly perplexed by the sheer number of probably logical conclusions and questions he had about that one simple statement that Raven could almost hear the gears grinding in his head. Heck, if they had on overhead light on in the cockpit she probably could have seen steam rising out of his ears and a forehead brighter red than a fire truck.

Just as fast as he blathered through the sea of wonder about that bombshell he chose one question that stood out the most to him and brought it up to the surface. "Why…have you never told me about him?" he asked, very quietly. "You told me everything else about you."

Raven sighed and abruptly felt like pulling her trademark hood up over her face. Which made no sense because A) Robin couldn't even see her face at the moment and B) it was kind of dumb to do that when the cockpit was already so dark they couldn't make out much of eachother's features even if they could see one another. Still, she felt like doing it. Settling for looking sideways out the window to the brewing storm clouds passing several thousand feet below them instead, she twirled a lock of her hair with one finger absently.

"You know how my biological father was an interdimensional magical entity that had massive amounts of chaos magic at his disposal?"

"Yeah…?"

Raven shut her eyes. "Meliodas is one of those too."

The next few seconds were, hands down, probably the longest few seconds of her entire life. And she had somehow managed to stop time before.

She could imagine his face as the words escaped her lips. She pictured alarm first, his masked eyes going super big and his spiky hair shooting to the stars like something just electrocuted him. Then she saw a darker expression in her mind, a shadow, play across him. She could see his brow lower, tighten up. His jaw set angrily. She could even see him bare his teeth a little as he ground them together in that way she had seen him do.

The same way he glared at Slade. At his own failures to stop him or figure out what the crafty bastard had been thinking.

Raven was taken aback by how incredibly calm he sounded out of her line of sight. "Did he ever do anything to hurt you?"

"Absolutely not," she said, immediately. Almost like a reflex.

"So he took good care of you until you went on your own? He was kind?"

"Yes. Definitely. He has always been there for me, even now."

Robin's voice took on that really rare, once in a blue moon lighthearted tone that he had; the one that made her eyes flip open instantly as she heard it. "So then why were you afraid to tell me about him then?"

Raven's mouth hung open like a cartoon for a moment. Probably could have caught rain as it fell from the sky if they weren't in a fully enclosed, futuristic cockpit. "What…?" She sat up a little in her seat. "You're not mad?"

Now he sounded amused, like this was all just one cute little joke. Almost as if he just watched a little kid put on the wrong shoe corresponding to the wrong foot and getting mad about it. "Why would I be? You said he took good care of you. Who am I to judge what exactly he is or isn't."

Serious. Cartoon. Face. "I don't understand," she blurted, shaking her head. She tried to peek at his face in front of her despite the dark, leaning to one side against the glass of the cockpit. Somehow his words could not have matched his actual expression.

"He is the same kind of thing that almost destroyed the world! He's not human and you have no clue what he is really like. I mean…" She trailed off, yearning for something more. Some kind of explanation from him.

Raven really had not expected him to suddenly sound so serious. "Raven…I don't care who my friends are as long as they're my friends. So if this guy was good to you? I don't care if he's supposed to be some crazy, evil monster. He obviously isn't since you're so fond of him. And besides, do you honestly think I don't know what it's like?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Do you think Batman is just some perfect saint to all of humanity? Some true light of the human race, a completely without flaw, selfless guy?"

Raven wasn't sure how to respond to that. She waited for him to continue, so he did.

"Raven, what I'm saying is I kind of know what it's like, in my own way. You think Meliodas comes off as a super scary guy just because he is what he is. Batman is the same way, just in a different light. He wasn't always the white knight everyone makes him out to be; he made a lot of mistakes. He went too far and hurt people, badly. He made bad calls and people died, many times. And if people knew just how much of that it took to make him the insufferable perfectionist that he is today, then I would feel the same way you were just a second ago. I'd be afraid to tell people he is my Dad because if they knew what he used to do, then they would be afraid of him. They would think he is dangerous and maybe even evil."

"Do I understand how you feel entirely? No. But I understand enough to see the big picture, you trust him so I will too, and you don't have to worry about how I feel about it at all. Please don't be upset-"

And that was pretty much all that he managed to get out before she phased through the seat, reappeared facing him and sitting on his lap, and kissed him more furiously than he was any bit prepared for.

She pulled back for a small moment, her lips puffy from the affectionate attack, just long enough to take in a really solid breath. Robin's face was total comedy gold and pure shock at the same time, even in the very modest glow of the red back lighting. In his infinite wisdom and articulate use of the English language, he said, "Holy shit I didn't know you could do that."

Like a total stud muffin. Much ladies' man.

Raven shot him that mischievous smile he had really given her reason to develop lately and leaned in close over one shoulder, her body seemingly on full autopilot with a total absence of anything even reminiscent of restraint. Her voice went all hot and heavy (which she didn't think was even physically possible for herself) right in his ear, whispering in a way that probably could have melted butter faster than a hot knife.

"Oh, I can do a _lot_ more than that," she sizzled, and took things a whole new step further by nibbling ever so gently on his earlobe.

Robin went so extremely slack under her it was unreal. His head leaned back as far as it could go against the seat, trying to face the stars above their heads. And as his mouth parted slightly he let out a deep, guttural groan of pleasure that lit one serious fire in Raven.

He _really_ liked when she did that to him.

That small gesture acted like a gun, firing off a round that started the insane dash of race they went into after that. Raven started to go to town on that super sensitive area of his head, kissing his neck from where it met the very edge of his jawline all the way down, past his Adam's apple, to just barely above his collar bone. She didn't break the stride of lip on skin contact there either. Instead she traced back up his other side, mirroring what she did before as her hands shot up to turn his head over to give her more access.

His groan was several times louder when she got to his other ear. It was also when he remembered he had hands and he did, in fact, know some sort of way to tell them to do something productive at a time like this.

He started out modestly by running one hand through her short cut violet hair, his naked fingers rubbing the silky locks as his hand stroked in a wide, slow upward motion. He enjoyed the feel of it running in between his knuckles and under his palm so he let that hand stay there, which she was totally fine with.

His other hand took a merry little journey lower, over the back of her neck. The touch was new to her, something she honestly had never experienced before. It took her deeply by the sensations, making it her turn to let out a little vocal appreciation against his throat.

He liked that a lot too.

That wonderful hand of his kept on going, exploring lower over her slender shoulders, tracing the line of her spine. Which, as it turned out, was very sensitive in a very acceptable way. All the small feelings made her breathing erratic, she twitched away from him and immediately pushed back against him, trying to urge him to continue. Robin obliged as if he planned to whether she had reacted that way or not and found what he was really after.

Yeah, he totally squeezed her butt. And although Raven jumped at first, definitely not used to feeling _that_ bold sensation before, she instantly let him have it. She even started to like it the longer he squeezed and simultaneously stroked the back of her head through her hair.

At some point she switched to full on, mouth to mouth kissing, having lost her willingness to let him have all the fun the whole time. He, again, had no problems with that either. Robin was amazing at kissing. He effortlessly managed to balance playing with her hair, squeezing her butt all over the place, and making her lips swell from the ferocity of how he dominated the contact between their lips.

Raven lost track of time entirely. Thankfully Robin somehow managed to not only do all of that but also flew the freaking jet at the same time; he seemed irritated to have to activate manual flight controls again as they apparently approached another airplane a little too closely, and was definitely aggravated that his flying hand just so happened to be the same one on her butt too.

When he craned his head to try and kiss her and see the sky at the same time Raven admitted defeat to the physical impossibility and switched targets back to his face again, except this time she focused heavily on one side of his jaw. One eye was enough to fly a plane, right?

Robin seemed to love her kissing pretty much anything on his face, apparently.

Time passed, until Raven finally began to succumb, somehow, to the sleep deprivation that had been creeping up on her ever since she brought his unconscious, handsome self back to the mansion. She let the steep turns he had to force the aircraft into act like a giant rocking chair to her, lullabying her into a steadily calmer state. Robin ended up getting tired of the constant bobbing and weaving between high altitude airliners at some point and guided the jet into a gradual climb.

Raven felt herself push even closer against Robin and took the chance to make herself more comfortable. Robin helped her out, like a true gentleman, by pulling the seat back a little so she didn't accidently get poked by any of the many important switches or dials behind her. He also leaned the chair back a lot more, so she could lay down lower on his chest without having to worry about sliding to the floor accidentally. Her arms wrapped around her neck and she buried her face more in the crook of where his chest met his shoulder, nuzzling against him a bit.

Robin set his priorities straight again by keeping one hand in easy reach of both the throttle and the joystick, resting it on the side of the console, while his other hand rested firmly on her butt again.

"You're awfully frisky," she teased, her voice starting to struggle to be loud enough to hear as she drifted closer and closer to dreamland. "Is my butt that awesome?"

"Your butt is amazing. Does it bother you?"

She leaned up to kiss his cheek briefly before dropping back into that comfortable little space she found in between all of his really tight muscles, satisfied that he even asked. "I'll get used to it," she murmured happily, closing her eyes.

She heard the big smile in his voice as he said, "Sweet dreams, Raven."

Robin didn't realize just how sweet of a dream she was already in, held so close in his protective arms.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12- Robin

Fourteen plus hours flying a jet across the world was more than enough time to do a lot of things, especially when you were more or less alone to your thoughts throughout the majority of the flight.

Luckily for them, the Bat Jet was equipped pretty well for such a journey. The seats were capable of ejection in a pinch, stored numerous pieces of survival equipment in secret compartments along the sides and back, and they even had storage for their own water and food supply if you did have to bail out in some crappy jungle somewhere. Or a frozen tundra, a desert, and pretty much every other major landscape across the globe.

They were also incredibly comfortable, with adjustable everything. You could heat them in specific places to help ease aches and pains, or have them even deploy a little foot rest to help you get to sleep if you needed. They even had a built in vibrating massage system that was rarely used.

Raven decided to disregard all of that by curling up into a ball all over his body.

He didn't complain for the first several hours. He liked holding her, running his hands over her as he passed the time with slow, light touches so she didn't wake up. But after about five hours his body inevitably reminded him that it had needs in the form of his bladder attempting to explode. It was pretty entertaining actually, since he ended up having to wake Raven to ask her if she needed to go. She did, so they ended up 'parking' somewhere over Spain.

Since the jet was known as a VTOL aircraft, it was capable of what aircraft designers called Vertical Takeoff Or Landing, which meant that it could hover in midair. So Robin ended up bleeding off the speed and switching it into hover at a safe, low altitude outside of a small Spanish villa where it wouldn't have been noticed. Raven phased them out of the cockpit and flew them quickly to a small coffee shop, which thankfully had just opened its doors at a brisk five o'clock in the morning to start the day.

The two of them were dressed in civilian clothes again to avoid suspicion, so they very quickly went to the bathroom. Robin bought the two of them a delicious little breakfast of different flavored muffins and got himself a Spanish coffee which basically made him wired from caffeine.

Seriously, those little things were dangerous.

All in all, it only took them about fifteen minutes before they got back in the jet and took off again, climbing higher than the other commercial air traffic so they didn't have to constantly duck between commuters. Raven ignored the spare seat and laid on him again, this time making their seat lean really far back so she could lay flat on her stomach across him. Happy to be comfortable and not hungry anymore, she drifted back to sleep in record time even before they reached their cruising altitude again.

Robin's mind went back to that rooftop the night before.

Was it all a dream? It wasn't like that would have been out of the question or at all surprising. After all, at that time he had not only survived crash landing a 747 into a river only fifty feet wide enough to accommodate it, but he had also steered the damn thing so well it didn't destroy a single bit of Gotham in the process. All the passengers suffered only minor injuries. And on top of all of that, Robin even saved his father's life by battling drowning, hypothermia, and the Bends all at once.

Even now, his body still tingled with pain from that whole incident.

His neck felt about as stiff as the armor making up Cyborg's chest, his thighs seemed to have endured an entire marathon of running that complexly slipped his mind, and the space between his shoulder blades felt even tighter than the leotard over Raven's slender, amazingly attractive body.

Worse than all of that, his head felt like a chord of firewood post-split. The damn thing pulsed in hopelessly random fashions as if it were a migraine in the making, creating mini pressures that tried to bust his skull from awkward small points all over his cranium. Maybe lack of sleep had something definitive to do with it or, if he considered it honestly, it definitely had to be.

Weeks on end fueled by less than five hours a night could really screw up a guy.

But some part of him refused to accept that logic. Some tiny part fueled from his past called out the idea that it had been a dream total bullshit. Robin never really dreamed when he slept, and it wasn't like he hadn't suffered even less exhaustion and stress than this before. Besides all that, Robin didn't sleep walk and he certainly moved from where Raven demanded he stay to recuperate.

His intellect ran through every possibility of why the whole thing could not have been real, considering everything from possibly getting a contact high from something on the plane to suffering a really nasty case depressurization from ascending from such deep water so quickly. Every proposal he made to try and shield the truth got shot down by not only a massive machine gun of his own damned counter logic, but also by a massive, glaring missile of what his feelings told him about the whole thing.

Batman warned him to listen to his instincts. Robin did, and it saved his ass more times than he cared to admit. So eventually, after hours of stewing it over in the steadily brightening sunlit sky, Robin came to accept the inevitable.

She was alive. And, sooner or later, he had to tell Raven about her. Not only did Raven have every right to know because she used to be more than just a friend to him, but Robin also had no clue how she could have survived the horrible death that he had been forced to watch, unable to stop it.

The memory alone made his heart drop. Sent a cold shiver barreling all the way down his spine. And made him blink rapidly under his civilian sunglasses to clear the wetness blurring his eyesight.

"Mmmm…."

Tucked closely under his chin, Raven finally stirred. He couldn't help but smile a bit at her short violet hair all a mess across her face, the silky strands chaotically flipped over her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. Feeling her stretch her upper back like a cat all on top of him was an added bonus that thankfully brought his mind back down to the here and now, clearing the uncertainties.

"Morning sleepyhead," he whispered, pecking her right on the forehead, next to that dazzling gem. "How was the R mattress? Not too bad?"

She didn't miss his meaning despite the grogginess at all. "It was really comfy…nice and _stiff_ in all the right places."

Oh. She had, uh, noticed that too. Damn. She really didn't miss a single thing, did she? Now he was kind of starting to blush.

Unfortunately, despite the teasing tone and the clear invitation to act on it, Raven abruptly sat up a little and glanced her gaze out the window to the clouds below. "Turn left and descend for me," she said, pushing her hips back.

Grinding against him ever so mischievously.

Okay, yup, they didn't just turn and descend at all. Roll and dive was a more accurate statement, the way Robin yanked back on the throttle and pushed the joystick over and forward. The altimeter started to digitally spin like it had just inhaled a line of cocaine and the G forces pushed the two of them together even more, really making Robin feel every single curve of her body against him.

She caught his hand to ease back the joystick out of nowhere, forcing the descent into more gradual territory just as snow started to smack roughly into the canopy glass. "Easy there, big boy," she cautioned, still playfully aware of just how much the contact was making him excited. "The weather is going to get really rough this close to the place. Very…bumpy."

"I could go for some turbulence right about now."

"Oh, I bet you'd like a little more than that. But we need to get serious here. I don't think anyone has tried to approach this from the air before so we have to be extremely careful."

Right on cue the shenanigans ceased, vanishing faster than a bolt of lightning as the first real wave of the raging blizzard hit them hard. The jet lurched roughly as if it somehow stubbed its toe midflight, the nose dropping far too low to be safe.

Robin engaged the flaps, pulling up on the stick as their airspeed started to drop. The wind was easily over forty knots and gusting heavily with a crosswind, meaning the plane was being hit from both in front of and on one side of them, slowing them down laterally while simultaneously bucking the nose off in random cuts to the left or right. He snatched the throttle again, firmly getting his feet on the rudder pedals before he pumped up the engine output with a steady hand.

"Get back to your seat and strap in," he ordered, the entire windshield completely white from the onslaught of snow flashing over its glass surface. "Can't see a thing anymore."

"Bank left, pull up another thirty feet," Raven responded instantly, her body phasing through his with a shivering cold wave of her magical energy. Robin complied, totally unable to get his bearings at all. Without solid visibility or any heat sources to use for references with the thermal imaging camera, Robin had to trust Raven's senses to guide them.

"How far?" he cut out, leveling out while fighting with throttle to keep their speed up.

"Three miles. Bank slight right, lean us over twenty degrees and drop about fifty feet."

Damn it. The Bat Jet's sensors were going ballistic at this point. Numerous collision alarms and low altitude indicators were muted to avoid a ton of robot voices screaming at him they were so very close to their imminent demise. Robin could just imagine the maze of mountain peaks flooding through the area, all covered so well by the snow storm the two of them would've already been dead if it hadn't been for Raven. He didn't even have time to admire how precise her instructions were, how curtly she was dipping and climbing them through the maze of the vast snowcapped landscape.

Right about then was when the whole aircraft went dark.

Out of nowhere, no warning whatsoever. The light red HUD, or Heads Up Display, showing digital readouts of information across the canopy itself cut off. All instruments winked out like candles in a single, rough breeze, silencing all the functions that were keeping them alive. The vibration of the engines faded, replaced by the unmistakable drone of white noise in his ears.

"He's got the plane. It's okay," Raven sighed, blowing air out of her cheeks. "Meliodas."

Holy shit.

For a second, Robin wasn't sure he heard her right. At least, until he felt the plane begin to very swiftly slow down, its huge mass suspended by an invisible force as it glided lower and lower to the ground. The wind still rocked them hard as it blasted the side of the frame, trying to topple them off balance.

But the magic holding the plane was so powerful it felt more like an ocean wave splattering on the side of an air craft carrier than a snow storm trying to stall them out of the sky. From where he sat, Robin could feel a pressure enclosed around the frame, like the walls of the jet were straining against the force of a gigantic hand that was squeezing them tight. He even heard the groan of the metal as the magical grip solidified.

It sounded like that eerie sound submarines made when diving deep in old war movies.

Every sense and instinct in his mind screamed at him to take action. Restart the plane and give full thrust in hover mode, to shoot above the turbulent mountain air. Or failing that eject with Raven and have her fly them to a nearby slope or peak, to seek shelter from the inevitable explosion of the jet colliding with the mountain face.

Anything.

But Robin trusted Raven. The idea that something else could have clamped down on them crossed his mind, but he disregarded it almost immediately. Raven recognized her father's magic.

With a careful twist, the jet's nose turned sideways a full one hundred and eighty degrees as it began to descend. As it did, Robin felt the familiar force of the landing gear deploying below them, having been manually released so smoothly by magic it seemed like the jet was actually still on for a moment.

Just how powerful was this guy? Robin really had to wonder. If he was able to do stuff like this seemingly effortlessly, Robin had to wonder what he would do if he found out what Robin had already done to Raven, before meeting him.

Yeah, he wasn't going there. Maybe if he didn't make a move on her while they were there he wouldn't even know they were…well, a thing.

Just when he thought there was no other way to show off just how powerful he was, the jet entered what felt like a tangible force field. It slid across the hull like a gigantic bubble, making the jet groan even more from its strength, and the weather quite simply disappeared. All the snow was gone, raging like Hell on the surface of the shimmering dome now above their heads as if still desperately trying to reach them.

The guy could not only turn off a jet midflight, catch it, and lower it safely to the ground using magic, but he could also simultaneously control a massive dome around his entire castle that kept the full force of a blizzard out. And he did it without as much as moving his fingers from his cane.

The jet landed with a tiny bump, as gentle as taking a step on a set of stairs. A thin cloud of dust puffed into the air ahead. But almost instantly it flashed away, as if sucked down over the castle walls by a gigantic invisible vacuum, leaving a striking view of the massive stone platform where they now sat. A circular landing pad easily big enough for even that Boeing Robin landed earlier was where the jet landed, which just seemed to float in midair off the side of a massive, super steep slope. A stone bridge, covered in cobblestones like an ancient European castle guard wall, connected the pad to a massive set of double doors that opened a way quite literally into the base of the castle and the mountain itself.

It was like something out of a Disney movie, mixed with historical accuracy and maybe a James Bond villain's lair all in one. Robin was completely blown away by the size and scale of the place; the whole thing was built into the near vertical side of the mountain, centered with a huge meeting hall and several smaller galleys lower on its sides, and crowned by over a hundred different towers that split off one another. Each tower seemed to look higher and even more precarious than the next, almost all of them lit by flickering orange lights that had to have been candles.

"You should see the look on your face," Raven teased, opening the canopy with a whisper of her magical spell. "Well, I guess I ought to say it, since you look _that_ amazed by it. This is _Edolas_ , the place I truly call my home."

Robin was still blinking in awe at the whole thing when he stepped out into the chilly mountain air, which apparently only had the tiniest whisper of a breeze from the force field. "This is…incredible, Raven. I can't believe just how huge this place is."

"Most people can't, at first," said a jovial, amused voice.

Robin wasn't sure what to think of Meliodas, when he looked down the four lane highway sized stone path towards the base of the castle and saw him. His first impression was that he looked awfully similar to the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.

He was a tall man, very tall. A very colloquial looking gray suit covered his body, which had frilly white wrists and a very distinct green bowtie across his frilly white collar. Both of his hands sat on the top of a very ornate looking black cane, which was topped by some kind of eerie green gem almost the size of a fist that glowed gently in pulsing flashes. His head was mostly covered by a ridiculous looking English top hat, but Robin noticed he had stark white hair, the same color as the snow outside the dome, that hung all the way down to his waist behind him.

His face was mostly shadowed by the rim of the massive hat he wore. All Robin could tell was that he seemed young, maybe in his early thirties by his face, and he was extremely pale. Like, pale as a Vampire. He also seemed very handsome in a regal, royalty harsh kind of way.

Even from over several yards away with a pair of circular, wire rimmed sunglasses on his face, Robin could see the color of his eyes.

They were that same eerie shade of green as the gem on his staff. A sinister kind of color, like something that glowed in the background of a horror film about witchcraft or ghosts, right before something jumped up and attacked you. It was so distinct and bright those eyes he had seemed to dwarf the entire scenery behind him with their intense glow. Despite being still so far away, Robin could almost feel those eyes were looking not at Raven, but directly at him, sizing up the way he walked, talked, and examined the world around himself.

Apparently he was in fact doing something magical with his gaze because almost as soon as Robin looked in his direction Raven stepped in front of him, shielding him from the contact. She jutted out her chin a little and glared at him, and Robin felt the familiar cold of her own powers starting to well inside of her.

Wait, was she protecting him from something?

"There's no need for that," Raven said, sternly. "I taught him how to deal with magic. Knock it off."

Meliodas chuckled. "I must say, either you taught him well how to reduce the effects of illusions or he is naturally gifted, my child. Most people would have thrown up by now from holding my gaze for so long."

Raven didn't change her tone, didn't budge an inch, and didn't release the power she was building. "He's tough enough to deal with everyone in there. So you can stop your little 'test' and actually be hospitable now."

Robin felt the pressure of whatever the hell was going on drop away in a whoosh, let air let out from a balloon. Her father laughed a little more, obviously amused. "I'm sorry, darling. The others have been getting very rough with one another lately and I didn't want to bring him in if he couldn't handle it. You know how intimidating they can be, whether they try or not."

Raven finally relaxed too; Robin saw her take a deep breath and release it again, her shoulders returning to their relaxed state again. Then she totally threw him for a loop by taking off at a dead sprint straight across the platform, jumping full force right onto her father.

He caught her with both hands as if she weighed nothing at all, not even buckling slightly as her weight hit him like a tackle. Meanwhile, his cane, impossibly, just stood on its own accord as if he was somehow still holding it. Even while Raven laughed happily and kissed Meliodas on the cheek, practically the happiest he had seen her in a long time, that cane still just seemed to chill all by itself. The big green gem on top of it sparkled slightly in the small light cast through the blizzard above them, but otherwise stayed still.

How the hell did he do that?

"Don't worry about your things, my boy," he said between patting her back. "I've already sent them to your room. Come with me."

He waited until Robin was side by side with him before he began to walk, still holding Raven in a tight hug on his upper torso. The staff floated slightly in midair then began to follow along his other side, so smoothly it seemed like the thing rolled on invisible wheels somehow.

"I take it she hasn't told you much about me or her home, has she?"

"Ah, no. Sir." Robin felt compelled to add, impulsively.

Meliodas noticed and chuckled at it. "That's not necessary, child. Speaking of which, Raven. I'm sure there's a few others you'd like to visit. Why don't you go on ahead while I walk with young Robin here?"

Raven looked into his eyes, a very shrewd expression on her face. So he waved one hand in a dismissive way and promised her, "I won't test him again, I swear. I just want to show him around. That's all."

She didn't change her expression. "Be nice or I'll kick your ass."

"Why yes, of course, darling," he said, his very English accent reminding Robin distinctly of Alfred. Albeit, maybe somehow more formal than even that.

Which reminded him. How did Meliodas know his name already? He doubted Raven talked to him about Robin, so….how?

Satisfied, Raven dropped out of his arms and changed into Robin's before he could pretend they weren't actually a couple. She pulled him in for a kiss that normally would have made him feel incredibly frisky but now just seemed to seal his death sentence with the scary, possibly overprotective inter dimensional being beside him. But as she left she gave him a warm smile, like he shouldn't worry about anything at all, then transformed into her namesake of dark energy and phased through the ground.

Leaving Robin all alone with her father.


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter 13- Robin_

Being left alone with danger was part of the job Robin signed up for.

He had dealt with it for as long as he could remember, from when his parents first introduced him to the wonderful world of heights and intense gymnastics, to after Bruce adopted and trained him to beat bad guys to a pulp with his bare hands, and especially now when he led his own team to fight crime and save the world. The risks were measured. Everything was a calculated, but very educated guess that so far hadn't left him dead in a dark alley way somewhere. So he was pretty good at dealing with everything that came with danger; things like fear.

But man, Robin was never more scared in his life.

Years of tactical awareness, martial arts training in multiple styles from all across the world, and countless hours of advanced studies in things like engineering, military history, and selected medical articles did not in any way prepare him for how to introduce himself to Raven's adoptive father. Especially not right after she frickin' French kissed Robin in front of the guy.

Robin wasn't sure if he was supposed to play it off like it was no big deal. Maybe he was supposed to be embarrassed, like he felt, and just act like it was a total surprise. Or maybe he should have pretended it didn't even happen at all, even though it clearly did, and he should've immediately said something witty to change the subject.

Why was there not a manual for this shit? It was hard enough just trying to read Raven's emotions (which were generally extremely elusive) and have a clue on what was really on her mind. Why did he have to be mentally tortured trying to find common ground with her freaking Dad on top of that?

"Impressive. I counted twenty two."

Robin blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Meliodas turned to look at him, and for a slight moment that magical light flooded his eyes once more. The sunglasses he wore went from jet black to nearly transparent in the tiniest fraction of a second, their dark lens dwarfed by the miniature super novas burning where his pupils should have been. That green glow illuminated his face instantly, reminding Robin that the man was easily a full head and shoulders taller than him.

"You've counted twenty two different escape routes from this place in the short time you have stood next to me, as well as several different ways to break the ice. I'm impressed at your wit. Oh, and in case you were curious, I cannot actually read your mind, but when you have watched humans for as long as I have you learn to read them pretty well."

"Ah. Well, um, thank you."

Meliodas smiled as if that amused him even more.

"I suppose I had better keep my promise to Raven. Let's take a stroll." Meliodas gently tapped his cane on the cobblestones, turning his attention to the pair of incredibly heavy, semi-truck sized wooden doors at the base of the castle. In response the doors creaked open with the deep groan of the steel hinges, revealing a very long tunnel made of red and gray brick. The floor transitioned into a canal of still, very clear water only a few feet deep past a few stone stairs. A simple wooden rowboat complete with a set of four different oars at the ready floated by the edge of a concrete pier, which Meliodas casually stepped into and faced back the way they had come.

When Robin sat down facing him and went to take some of the oars, he chuckled and waved his hand. The oars went total Queen Anne's Revenge on him and started to row the boat on their own as if two very experienced rowers synchronized their strokes invisibly.

Robin tried his best to ignore them.

"I'm sure you have plenty of burning questions," Meliodas said, casually rubbing the gem on his staff. It almost looked like he hoped to erase a smudge from its perfectly glassy reflection. "It's not impolite if you want to ask them."

"Okay. What exactly is this place?" Robin inquired, trying distract himself from the magic.

He considered that with a hmmmm of his too formal English accent. It almost sounded like Alfred trying to impersonate and make fun of, well, himself. "I suppose you could call it a supernatural orphanage," he mused, shrugging. "As you probably guessed, there are quite a few children living here with me. Raven was not the first and certainly will not be the last."

"So you take in magical children like her. Children without a home."

Meliodas smiled again in a genuine fashion. "Oh, not quite, my boy. There are plenty of magic communities that will take in _normal_ magical children who have nowhere else to go. The children I care for are far more, well, delicate I should say. They are all children like Raven. Children who have unnatural powers that far exceed the everyday variety of magic. They have been shunned by their respective societies and several are even children of prophecy, just like she is."

Robin blinked. "Wait, are you saying Trigon had more children than Raven?"

Those nuclear green eyes seemed to glow hotter under his glasses at the mention of the name, making Robin a little flustered that he even said it in the first place. But they dialed back just as fast as they heated up and Meliodas continued.

Robin's heartbeat still sped up a little though.

"I'm half pleased you say that name without fear and half irritated that the bastard is still frequently the topic of polite conversation. But no, not that I am aware of. What I am saying is that there are countless secret societies of magic across this planet and they all have plenty of their own folklore and foretelling of doom. Some of these children are the same as Raven because they are also the offspring of great, terrible beings. Half humans, half gods. Demigods, you could say."

"What makes Raven so special and so very much different among them is because although technically Trigon was not the most powerful of all the beings that sired a child under my care, so much of his own power manifested in Raven that she is easily the most powerful magic user out of all my children. Because of the nature of her powers and the link to her own emotions is so strong, she is without a doubt the most difficult child I have ever cared for."

Robin's eyes probably looked like dinner plates. "I…cannot believe Trigon was not the strongest inter dimensional being out there. And I had no idea there was so many kids similar to Raven."

"Oh yes, Trigon was a particularly arrogant narcissist amongst my kind. He was essentially like a high school jock amongst us spirits of chaos, always blabbing on about how big and bad he was and picking on the lesser beings. There are several quieter ones still out there today that could have easily slain him long ago, but they all have other agendas, like myself."

As he spoke the tunnel lit up ahead of them in intervals. Old oil lamps came alight as if struck by a match, yet Robin saw no oil or other fuel keeping them going. When they got far enough ahead they winked out far behind them as well, making the entire tunnel feel incredibly long and deep into the mountain. Their voices echoed a little off the walls too, only adding to the feeling they were both traveling deep underground.

"There are quite a few more than you would think, as well. Right now there are seventy-two children under my protection."

"Damn. That's a lot of supernatural puberty to deal with," Robin blurted, without thinking. Before he could apologize hastily Meliodas sighed and nodded. "Yes, it can be quite taxing. Keeping all of their powers suppressed all the time is an ordeal for certain."

"But that isn't all you do for them," Robin thought aloud. "You help to keep them hidden from the people who want to exploit or hurt them. People from their old societies."

He clapped softly on the back of one of his hands, kind of like how someone might applaud a play very politely at the end of an impressive performance. "Very insightful of you. You are definitely correct. There are thousands of bounty hunters, religious officials, and concerned citizens…even the occasional idiots that think killing one of them will make them respected and rich in their political hierarchy. I distract, threaten, confuse, and if I have to kill plenty of those would be 'saviors' of humanity."

Robin shuddered to think of exactly what Meliodas could actually do with his own magic. The idea of him killing someone crossed Robin's mind when Raven first explained who he was, and after seeing the incredible things he had already done only solidified his thoughts on the guy. Someone who could simultaneously catch a jet out of the turbulence of a snow storm and could keep seventy-two Raven-like magical powerhouses from killing each other could easily destroy countless lives. Add that to maintaining a giant castle with inanimate objects that come to life like Beauty and the Beast short of dancing and singing, Robin had no doubt Meliodas was easily at least as powerful as Trigon was. Maybe even stronger based on how he compared the evil monster's declarations for world domination to petty insults of a high school football star. Hell, Meliodas seemed to regard Trigon as more of nuisance than an actual opponent worthy of his time and effort.

Robin had the distinct impression that if Meliodas wasn't constantly keeping all those magical kids in check he would have simply vaporized Trigon before that whole battle with the Titans ever went down.

"That is…very noble of you. I don't condone killing but to protect your children, I completely understand," Robin ended up saying, on habit trying to look up at the sky as he thought about it. Instead, he noticed the oars swiftly reversed course, coaxing the boat into a gentle stop. Another concrete pier appeared with a soft envelope of orange lighting to receive them, complete with even more matching heavy wooden double doors, and in the quiet before Meliodas spoke again Robin could hear the sounds of something past those doors. He couldn't place what yet but he knew there was something going on past that.

"Thank you, I do appreciate when someone agrees with what I am doing here," the deity said, stepping onto the shore in a practiced motion. "Although many people would refuse to believe it, a lot of these children are perfectly normal human beings. They just need the time to learn how to control their powers and they can all be similar to Raven one day, able to join the human world without fear or resentment. If you teach them how to behave while young they will grow into respectful, gentle people one day. Follow me, please," he added, prompting Robin to ignore the oars again and step up.

Once again the doors opened and once again Robin was truly amazed by what he saw.

They walked leisurely through a large mud room filled with enough winter coats and boots to fill a surplus army warehouse, into a sloped hallway with wooden stairs that moved on their own like an escalator, and through a set of metal doors adorned with flashy stones into a dining room that looked like it belonged to Hogwarts. Nobody was in there as they continued to walk through but Robin did see a plethora of brooms, mops, buckets, and other cleaning supplies taking care of tidying up the place. The sounds of all the sweeping, brushing, and polishing must have been what he heard from down below. Robin probably could have stared at them all day long if Meliodas didn't steer the two of them down another hallway lined with twenty foot tall stone gargoyles out of the room.

As they went Robin could sense the dark theme of the castle's interior. The entire place was made of dark grey stone, covered by intimidating rock guardians that reminded him of European dragons. Every one of them had sharp edged armor made of some kind of red mesh metal covering different parts of their bodies, each one accenting more and deadly possible weapons. Some of them even held weapons in their clawed hands and stood like a human would, showing distinct differences in the physiology between each and every gargoyle.

They watched the two of them walk down the passageway from large cut outs inside the walls as flames from the torches reflected in their multicolored eyes.

Robin felt almost compelled to ask what exactly they were and whether or not they were really alive but decided he would rather not know and just continued along, shrugging into his jacket a little closer.

Meliodas continued walking in silence past a number of different rooms. The place had a massive hot spring, impossibly, behind a seemingly random heavy door. A spacious, five story library appeared out of another door, its shelves stacked from the ground floor all the way up to the ceiling. Robin was pretty tempted to poke around in there for a while but followed with Meliodas, leaving its leather upholstery reading chairs and roaring fireplace behind. After seeing it he abruptly realized the entire castle was warm despite the raging storm outside. Somehow the whole place, down to the incredible Olympic sized stone framed pool behind yet another random door, all remained at a comfortable level.

Robin saw an industrial sized kitchen with a pantry so big he could have gotten lost in it, a fully stocked gym with free weights and an indoor track, and a sick bay filled with hospital beds and big cabinets of medicine. The longer they went on the longer Robin wondered where exactly Raven had gone to. There was definitely plenty of places for her to hide.

Out of nowhere Meliodas paused. Robin almost ran into him as he glanced above his head at the ancient text written on tapestries hanging from the ceiling, his mind in its own world of amazement.

"Terribly sorry, my boy," the spirit said, frowning. His mirrored sunglasses glanced back behind him and he sighed as if a little tired. "One of the children needs me right now. I'll have to leave you here. But do feel free to explore as you wish; the whole castle is child proof, believe it or not, so don't worry about magical booby traps or anything. When I return I will show you to your things and after that, where Raven is. Enjoy yourself!"

Underneath his own mirrored sunglasses Robin's eyes blinked and Meliodas was gone.

He didn't see a single hint of magic, not even the slightest flash of energy or even a whisper or a spell. The guy had simply vanished as if he was a hallucination or a dream.

"Well good talk, old sport." Robin muttered, mocking Alfred's formal sarcasm.

Where in the Hell was he? The castle wasn't laid out logically at all, nothing seemed to correspond to where it should have been from what he saw of it from outside. All the rooms were magically larger than they should have been which led Robin to believe that unless he had a lot of time exploring the place, he would have no idea where exactly to find everything he needed or wanted to explore.

On a whim, he turned to another random door, pulling its simple latch and really hoping he didn't run into a three headed dog the size of a T Rex waiting for him on the other side.

Nope, it was a stairwell funnily enough. Robin took one step and the stones began to move like a conveyer belt, making no sound at all as he began to descend even further into the mountain, stopping after what felt like a while at yet another matching door. "I don't know whether to love or hate this place," he thought aloud to himself. "The whole thing is just one endless game of crazy moving objects and gothic scenery."

The door opened before he even reached for the handle and Robin saw probably the last thing he ever expected to see in any castle, much less a magical one hiding out in the middle of the Chinese mountains.

It looked like a downtown nightclub in Jump City. The whole place reminded him distinctly of the same creepy warehouse that the team went to with Starefire's sister, Blackfire, years ago. There were strobe lights flashing all over the place with thousands of colors. A deep bass of some kind of techno music blared through massive subwoofers all across the room. A dance floor was set up across the rectangular space on the far side, but nobody was actually dancing there that he could see.

Instead there were a bunch of people standing around in a close circle, cheering and yelling at something happening inside the ring.

Robin frowned and made his way inside, seeing a lot of the people wearing a mix of gothic looking clothing. Almost everyone had black jeans, long cloaks, or all manner of swinging chains and silver accented things across their bodies. Nobody paid any attention to him as he stepped quietly into the edge of the crowd, peering in between people to see the action going down in the center.

Two guys were in the middle of what wasn't a dance floor at all, but a ring like what boxers or pro wrestlers would fight in. As Robin approached, he remembered why the castle wasn't just full of every day normal magical teenagers either.

One of the two fighters spat out a curse of some kind in a language Robin didn't understand. As he raised one hand high over his hooded head, a swirl of yellowish colored power began to swell into an orb just above his fingertips. The thing hissed and buzzed like a thousand Tasers before he threw it, same as a fast baseball, right at his opponent.

The ball sailed harmlessly nowhere near the guy. With a tiny whisper the second combatant sneered in a menacing fashion, reached out with two of his fingers in a slow swirling motion, and then flicked his wrist hard. A long, grotesque whip of chaotically cycling red and gray energy snapped hard into existence, hitting the hooded guy right in the chest.

He screamed in pain and rocked back like he was just tackled by a linebacker, a hissing slash torn through his coat and shirt. Robin watched him drop to the mat hard without another sound. The fighter was out cold before he even went horizontal, his mouth still wide open in a scream of agony.

In response, the crowd roared in approval. They threw their arms up in cheers as a pair of other cloaked people came to pull the downed loser out of the ring, their expressions grim. "Anyone else?!" the victor demanded. His wild reddish eyes scanned the crowd like a wolf hunting for sheep, a maniac grin contorting his features. "Come on! One of you wants to knock this smug look off my face, right?!"

Robin watched the blonde haired, athletic build champ pose a couple of times for his entertained audience, wondering what the hell was going on. What was this, a supernatural fight club? Did Meliodas or Raven know that these kids were beating the shit out of each other with dangerous magic down here?

Besides that he got a distinct impression the otherwise pretty boy who won the match had to be something of a castle bully to the other children. A number of younger teens near the back of the crowd shied away from his excited gaze as he swept over them all, demanding another rush. Some even looked kind of embarrassed to be there in the first place, like they had been forced to come to it or something. Hell, for all Robin knew, maybe the blond guy was the one who bullied them into watching him fight. Maybe the boy who lost was just trying to give his ego a reality check.

Robin knew shit had well and truly hit the fan when the blonde's unnatural glowing red eyes rested on himself, standing near the back with his arms crossed.

"Hold up!" he barked at the crowd, slashing his hand at them to call for silence. With a finger pointed directly at Robin he grinned even more darkly and said, "I've never seen you before."

For a second nothing was said in reply so the blonde clarified. "Yeah! You, standing there with the long white coat in the back. You're new here, aren't you?"

Robin didn't like where that was going but he answered honestly, having to shout a little over the din of the heavy bass. "I'm just visiting, a friend of one of your friends." He was hoping that was enough to deter him but the blonde just seemed even more pleased with himself, posturing for the crowd as if checking to see they were seeing what he was. The front row of his loyal fans only egged him on by nodding excessively and waving their hands at Robin, as if demanding who he was.

"We've never seen any friends of our friends here before," the blonde continued, walking closer. "Who exactly is your 'friend' in here?" He asked, as people cleared out of Robin's way so the two of them were only a few feet apart without anyone blocking the space between them.

"Her name is Raven."

Robin wasn't sure what to expect by dropping her name like that, but to avoid a confrontation with the guy he figured it would probably be best to just tell the truth.

The crowd looked genuinely shocked, like they just saw a ghost. A lot of them who had faces Robin could actually see went a little pale. Even the blonde dude momentarily froze up, blinking at Robin like he just heard some seriously bad news. But just as fast as it got to him the guy smiled again, his arrogance quickly gaining pace, and he laughed a little scornfully. "Raven doesn't have any friends, pal," he suddenly growled, his smile evaporated just as fast as it came. "Even if she did she wouldn't be friends with some short little nobody like you!"

A little fire started to burn in Robin's chest. "She has plenty of friends. And look who's talking."

The crowd made an orchestrated "oooooooohhhhhhhh" sound, prompting the blonde guy's face to melt into an even more hostile expression. "You have no clue what you're talking about asshole," he snarled, his tone venomous as a rattlesnake. "Raven doesn't like being friends with anyone. They just get in her way. And for the record, I'm not some scrawny little weakling like you are. You have so little Talent I couldn't even feel you walk in so I know you don't have what it takes to sit anywhere close to her level. Even if Raven did have any friends she definitely wouldn't want some lame ass, spiky headed little bitch being one of hers. You're a freaking wuss dude!"

The crowd roared in approval as he stood there, opening his arms up with a 'Come at me bro' kind of posture, his head cocked condescendingly to one side.

Robin ordinarily probably could have let it go. The little insults about his height, hair, and toughness didn't tend to get under his skin because he had put plenty of grown men in their places with his 'scrawniness.' He could have gotten over the cocky attitude and the know-it-all things he said about how Raven wouldn't want to be friends with a weakling. Hell, he might have even been able to get past the idiocy that Raven didn't have any friends.

But right then, Robin had a lot of pent of emotion under his skin already. He had survived a plane crash and almost lost his father not long ago, he was jetlagged, and he was in turmoil about even the possibility someone who used to be close to him might still be alive. He was angry at Trigon for making Raven have to go through yet another massive ordeal just to protect the world, even after the bastard was dead and gone. His own need for conflict, his natural desire to face a massive challenge was roaring in his ears and making his temple vein swell, demanding he act.

Most of all, Robin's protectiveness for Raven made him pissed. How dare some dumbass think he could talk about her like he knew everything about her? Even worse than that, how dare he think that she was some heartless monster that Robin knew good and well she wasn't?

Robin spun on his heel and walked away, his emotions threatening to override his logic. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to make a one eighty and beat that blonde dude's face in, no mercy. But he knew he couldn't do that, knew he needed to walk away and cool off, and he knew he shouldn't fight someone under the care of a freaking deity. He especially knew he shouldn't do it and Raven find out either, because what kind of example would that set for the two of them?

Nothing good would come out of fighting that guy.

"Don't turn your back on me!" That was the only warning Robin heard before that same snap of crackling energy hit him hard right across the shoulders.

Robin bit out a hiss of pain, his shoulders on fire. He felt like he had been sliced by a knife from one end of his upper torso to the other. A knife which was still superheated from being stuck in a fire for hours on end, and felt like it somehow sunburned his skin severely from everywhere up the back of his neck and down his back. Just the spasm from the attack made Robin's skin feel like it was trying to tear off his muscles, sending shockwaves of misery flashing all through his body. He had no doubt he was bleeding from the strike, but the only blood he sensed was from his mouth, where he accidentally bit his lip from the pain.

The logic of right and wrong disappeared like a leaf in a windstorm, swept away so fast it was like it had never been. In its place, Robin's anger rose to the surface in a rush.

A flash of a strobe light illuminated Robin taking a knee, holding one of his shoulders with a trembling grip one second. The next strobe flash he was gone. The blonde cursed and swung his head around, his hand poised to summon another tendril of magical energy.

Robin dropped from the ceiling like a ninja, kicking him straight in the face. Before he landed he caught the guy's hand, twisted with a searing pain in his back, and threw him over his head hard. The blonde barely had a moment to recover from the lights flashing in his blurred vision before he lost his center of gravity and collided with the stone wall, right on his chest.

He dropped like a stone and spat out blood from busted lips. Focus returning, he rolled slightly and lashed out with an open palm at Robin. A huge ring of grayish black smoke-like energy hissed in contact with the air as it expanded from his hand, a dangerous swirling energy circulating in its center as it flew across the room. The thing looked like a grotesque mouth opening wide for its prey.

Robin dropped from his sprinting, tucked, and rolled underneath the magic. It smacked into part of the ceiling and the wall across the room like a heavy water balloon, spewing acid that burned the concrete with wisps of steam and smoke.

Robin flat footed out of the maneuver, leaped high into the air, and kicked off the wall as another ring of acid smoke opened wide right at him. His whole body felt strained and overheated as his spun out of its way. His legs caught his weight with a spike of pain in his thighs, but Robin ignored it, snagged a simple wooden chair sitting beside him, and threw it at the blonde with a sharp twist of his hips.

Caught off guard by such a physical attack, the bastard tried to dodge it but took too long deciding the best way to move. He got hit hard in the ribs as he tried to dart to one side, the wood shattered as the breath blew out of his mouth all at once. Robin caught up to him just as he rose back to his full height, and the guy had no chance once the two of them were that close together.

Raven had taught Robin the best way to deal with fighting a magic user was not trying to fight them at distance, but to try and exploit their physical weaknesses at close range. Once they were in a certain range trying to use their magic could get themselves seriously injured as well as their opponent, and they often had little to no skill in dealing with hand to hand combat because of the complexity of their magic focus. For someone like Robin, that made taking down a magic user at close range an incredibly easy affair, because he operated best in close quarters.

His hands and feet flew across the blonde guy's body. Robin didn't hold back in the slightest, pounding him with a dangerous ten strike combination of cross punches, chops, and body locks. He finished the entire routine with a roundhouse kick to the cheek that hit the blonde guy so hard it didn't make him slam to the ground from the blow. Blood splattered from his mouth as the shock of the force rippled down his entire body, its power doing real damage to the bones of his face.

His knees buckled not a second later and the blonde teen collapsed to the cold stone floor, his consciousness vacated from his mind like a light switch. He crumpled in a heap, partly on one knee with his arms flopped underneath his abdomen, with his face smacking hard into the floor.

The crowd was silent in shock for all of a second before someone screamed in outrage, prompting everyone to do the same.


End file.
